:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:..:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:. THE LEGEND OF KAGE 2 - NDS Version 1.0 (17/11/2008) Version History: 1.0: Basic guide complete - (17/11/2008) 0.3: First five Stages - (13/11/2008) .:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:..:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:. Legality: This Guide is Copyright, 2008, Matthew McIntyre This guide may not be used on a website or in any public forum where it is protected by copyright without the consent of the author. To contact me: entropiclobo(at)yahoo(dot)ca or chaos(dot)wolf(at)gmail(dot)com Websites with permission to use this Guide: www.GameFAQS.com www.neoseeker.com faqs.IGN.com www.1up.com www.honestgamer.com www.supercheats.com Game by SQUARE ENIX/TAITO ****************************************************************************** * Table of Contents * ****************************************************************************** *To jump to a section, hold the Control Key and press F, then type in the section number as it appears (ie type LK1) LK1: Intro LK2: Gameplay LK3: Stages LK3.1: Stage 1: Prologue LK3.2: Stage 2: Quickening LK3.3: Stage 3: Trap LK3.4: Stage 4: Flight LK3.5: Stage 5: Twilight LK3.6: Stage 6: Caverns LK3.7: Stage 7: Onslaught LK3.8: Stage 8: The Castle LK3.9: Stage 9: The Tower LK3.10: Stage 10: Abyss LK3.11: Stage 11: Inferno LK3.12: Stage 12: Reckoning LK3.13: Stage 13: The End LK4: Backtracking LK5: Enemies LK6: Ninjitsu LK6.1: The Board LK6.2: The Spells LK7: Skills LK8: Art Gallery LK9: Credits The Legend of Kage 2 is rated "D" for "Demon." It contains scenes of high flying ninjas and a witch with legs that go on forever. Player discretion is advised. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | LK1: Intro | -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The Legend of Kage 2? What a strange -but wonderful- choice for revival. And not only revival, but the Contra 4 treatment. A game that bleeds and oozes the original and yet is its own entity, something new yet familiar. And the Legend of Kage? That in itself is such a risky choice. The retrospective on TLK is a negative one, after all. But really, Kage was like most other action games of the day. Flawed, yet fun. At the very least, my goggles aren't rosey pink going into The Legend of Kage 2. But that helped, because I was really taken with this game. It's beautiful, it's hard, and you can jump really high. What more can you want from a ninja action game? Skills and magicks? Yeah, they're here. Layers are added to the original style without dragging it down - without complicating things. And the DS controls are all but absent. It's really a wonderful surprise. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | LK2: Gameplay | -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The Legend of Kage 2 is a high-jumping action game. The typical format for a stage is 2 or 3 action areas followed by a boss - though this is not always the case. You have a bar of health, which decreases with hits. When you die, you can normally start from the area you died in, minus any score you had. Score is primarily used for earning ranks in stages, and these ranks are more or less geared toward unlocking a handful of artwork. The game has selectable controls, but it is typically: Control Pad Left/Right: Walk Control Pad Double Tap Left/Right: Run left or right. Control Pad Double Tap Left/Right then Jump: Higher Jump Control Pad Double Tap Left/Right: Air dash Run + A: Dash slice. L/R: Scroll between Ninjitsu B: Jump A: Slash Y: Ranged Weapon X: Use Ninjitsu Up: Angle attack up Down: Crouch/Attack down. Ninjitsu is the magic system of the game. You can collect orbs in the levels to place on a board and combine into spells. You have a discreet amount of MP, and each spell uses a specific amount of Magic Power. You can increase your health and MP by finding coloured magatamas in the levels with just a little bit of searching. Walls: ----- You can climb walls in this game. Essentially, you jump at a wall to grab a hold of it. Once on the wall, hold up to run up, or down to slide down. If you slide down, then hit up and jump very quickly, you seem to do this jump that scales the wall very quickly. It's hard to describe, but it comes easier in practice. To reach the top of ledge, you just have to run up. If you are sliding down a wall, you have to jump off at the bottom. You can attack while on walls. Ceilings: -------- You can also brachiate across ceilings. Now, you can attack while on the ceiling, but not jump from it. If you want to reach something from a ceiling, consider dropping from it, and air-dashing if you have to. ----The Characters---- There are, as you know, two characters available for use in this game. Kage is the hero of the first game. Chihiro is a newly promoted ninja debuting in this title. Their stages are the same, but the game plays much differently depending on who you use. Kage: ---- Kage uses a Katana. It is a little less powerful but has more reach than Chihiro's Kama. Yes, reach is very important in this game. It allows you to attack an enemy while staying outside of teh counter range. Instead of a fudo, Kage uses shurikens. These are weaker, and cannot pierce enemies at first, but have superior range and Kage can toss many in a row with the proper upgrades. They are a safer tool to use in most instances. Kage has less MP, but more health than Kihiro. Chihiro: ------- Chihiro uses a Kama, which is noticeably more powerful than Kage's Katana. It has less reach, however, and yes this is important. To stay out if the counter range of some bosses or enemies, she will have to use her fudo. Now, the fudo is a chain that Chihiro can toss in the direction you press. It is more powerful than the shurikens and can pierce right from the start. It will start at a fairly miserable length, and never matches the distance of the shurikens. Still, once its length is more or less maxed it's excellent. Chihiro has less health, but more MP than Kage. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | LK3: Stages | -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= These stages are geared toward Normal mode. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LK3.1: Stage 1: Prologue ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----Area 1---- Power-Ups: None Butterflies: None Head left a bit and strike down the ninjas here and then head right. Slash at the ninjas in your path. Jump at the ledge you come to. Drop off the ledge to the right, run right chopping the ninjas into ribbons. Climb at the dual cliff to the right. Drop off the ledge to the right. Move up the hill chopping the green and blue ninjas. You should be able to chain at least 17 of these ninjas together. This will be a Great combo, and be helpful toward your rank. ----Area 2---- Power-Ups: None Butterflies: One There will be a green ninja right near to the beginning. Get ready for a few more to appear as you head right. Now, head up the hill slashing ninjas. Pick up speed as you head down the right slope of the mountain. Start chaining them. At the hill, jump through the ninja and chop him. Land and keep moving right to the bridge, chopping ninjas to maintain the chain. You can maintain your chain between the bridges. Dash between each bridge and slash into the ninjas that appear. There will be a taller cliff to the right. We want to jump up through the ninja at the top and slash as we head through it. Slash the irange ninja. Take the gold butterfly here for a reill on your life and power. Move off the screen to the right. ----Area 3---- **BOSS** This is the first boss. Yukinosuke is somewhat overpowering to a fresh ninja. Essentially, he will jump and slash at you if you leave him to his own devices. When you try to slash attack him, he will counter with his own slash - ouch. At this point, you may not be able to catch him in your slashes because you won't have a combo yet. When he is depleted by half of his life, he will do a dash attack. You should jump over this. Please note that you _can_ stand on top of the tree. Be careful not to get stuck on this tree. Because if you aren't used tot he game yet, Yukinosuke can get a cheap shot as you try to get down (down and jump). So how the hell do we fight this guy? Kage has his shurikens and can attack from a distance, but Chihiro's fundo will probably get her hit. What you want to do is use a dash attack (double tap forward and attack as you approach Yukinosuke). This should carry your character -THROUGH- Yukinosuke and if he counters you, it will be away from you. To make sure that you will score the hit on him, and not get countered, you should make sure there is space behind Yukinosuke. That is, don't dash into a wall. Keep it up and he will drop quickly. ****Hard and Expert: Yukinosuke is virtually the same fight on the harder difficulties, but he does hit harder of course. Just be more aware of his counters. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LK3.2: Stage 2: Quickening ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ We're into a forest now. Note that there are a lot of trees to climb on here. Keep an eye out for the grey orb, get equipped with Glow magic early on. ----Area 1---- Power-Ups: Blue Orb Butterflies: None Move right and slash the ninjas. The gap between these ninjas and those on the cliff is going to be too far apart for us to chain with a minimal jump. Climb the wall to the right. Slash at the ninjas as you run right. Jump into the tree and slash the blue ninja as you fly past it. Drop down, kill the green ninjas on the ground and run up the wall to the right. There will be a green ninja leaping off the cliff here, slash him as he jumps and you may be able to add him to your chain. Run right, slash the blue ninja. Jump into the tree and slash the blue ninja. Drop to the ground and run right, slash the green ninjas. When you see the giant tree trunks, jump up on top of it and slash the ninja. Jump to the next and slash the ninja. There is a wicker chest here. Slash it a few times and a blue sphere will be revealed. Move right slashing ninjas and jump into the trees, slashing the ninjas. Drop to the bottom and move right. When you get to the big trunk, jump up and hit the ninjas on top with your long range weapon. Strike those at the bottom, then head right, off the screen. ----Area 2---- Power-Ups: Red Orb Butterflies: One Head right and jump onto the wall and run to the top. Jump to the cliff on the left and run up. Open the wicker chest at the top of the wall. Take the red orb and get ready to head right again. Jump right and jump into the tree. Kill the ninja, then jump to the next tree. Kill these three tree ninjas from the top to bottom. Drop to the ground and kill the ninjas down here. And keep this up. Head right, slash ninjas on the ground, then either jump up and slash or use the long range weapon on those in the tree. Keep this up until you see the hole in the floor. Drop down here and crack open that wicker chest for a butterfly. Get it for some healing then kill the ninjas in this chamber. Kill the ninjas as you go and stay in the top of the trees. Move off the right of the screen at the far right. ----Area 3---- Power-Ups: Grey Orb Butterflies: One *You need jump 2 for the grey orb here, at the very least. But return and take the orb as soon as possible. Check the trees immediately from where you came out. There should be a orange ninja here. Strike him down for a grey orb. Once you have that, head right killing ninjas and drop off the edge. This is where the two paths meet up. You can head left and kill a few ninjas if you want, but there isn't really any reason to unless you are going for a rank. Let's focus on heading right. The hill leading up and right is a great place to combo. Strike the ninjas on the hill then kill the guys in the tree and drop back down to kill and more that have arrived. Please note the red ninjas here toss bombs in small arcs, so beware. Climb the tree trunks you come to. Of course, kill the ninjas in your way, but unless you want to kill some ninjas to the lower right of this jumping sequence there is no reason not to start climbing here. At the top you will see a orange ninja. Do not kill this ninja yet. head right, killing blue ninjas. There will be a monk here. He jumps around and tosses fireballs. Basically, you can geta bit of a chain here. Jump past him in the air and strike him. When he lands, strike him in the back. When he is dead, head back and kill the orange ninja for a butterfly. Once you are healed, head right off the screen. ----Area 4---- **BOSS** Yojubo is the boss here. His head must be filled with fuel, so he's pretty friggin' rad. Either way, this is a fire based boss. He has a definite pattern as well. So while is pretty powerful to a new ninja, he is very exploitable. He will jump to one side of the screen and breathe fire. Kage can hit him with his shurikens at this point, Chihiro cannot reach with her fudo. After this, he jumps up the cliffs throwing fireballs. Do not jump after him. Wait for him to land then slash him. Even without a combo you should be able to get in three strikes. When he starts running, he will attempt to ram into you. Jump over this. When he has dashed three times, he blows fire again and so the cycle repeats. When half of his life has depleted, he will use a more powerful fire breath attack where he grows to immense size. He will make an audible "AAAHHHH!" and it replaces the standard fire breath in the cycle. Essentially, go to the OPPOSITE side of the area and climb to the top of the hill here. NOT the one above him, the top of his head will tough you and does pretty massive damage as well. A stream of fire will streak across the field, just below the top of the plateau you are standing on. After it starts to recede, drop down and move over to him. Slash him as much as possible. *Note: You can also stand on the EDGE farthest from the wall of the plateau above him. You shouldn't be touched by him there. When he jumps up it is just like before, stay on the ground. Strike him a few times before he starts his dashing cycle, then get to the opposite end as he starts his growth fire beam attack again. Just keep it up and he will drop pretty quickly. ****Hard and Expert: Yojubo doesn't change, and he doesn't take many more hits. Just play it safe with his pattern, and attack him relentlessly enough that he doesn't even do the charge attack. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LK3.3: Stage 3: Trap ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The trees here are in the background. Beware of most pits in this level, they are likely to be traps with bamboo shafts. ----Area 1---- Power-Ups: Blue Orb Butterflies: None Head forward. There is a wooden alarm in the trees. Make it ring and two blue ninjas will appear. Take them out and head right. Climb the cliff and head right. Slash apart the enemies on this plateau as you continue right. Drop down the right edge while slashing to strike the enemies on the wall. If you miss you can jump up and slash or hit them with your ranged weapon from below. They toss shurikens periodically, so watch out. Stay on the ground and keep to the right. Walk down the hill while slashing the blue ninjas, drop off the cliff and strike the wall ninja, then attack the ninja on the ground. Just to the right there is a wooden alarm. Kill the ninjas but beware of the two that jump out of the bushes. Now just after this is a second alarm. Make it ring NOW. If you move past and it rings offscreen you won't get the blue orb here. Once it rings, a wicker chest drops down. Open it and take the blue orb. Kill the few ninjas to the right and start to run up the walls. Slash the wall ninjas as you come to them. Do the same on the second wall and pop up on top. Slash the grey ninja here. Climb the third wall and kill the kite ninjas at the top with your ranged weapon. Head right, jump over the pit as it is a trap. Keep jumping the gaps as you head right. A high wooden alarm sounds and a few ninjas jump out, dispose of them and continue to the right. You will be running down a slope at this point. Slash the ninjas you come to and maintain your combo on the monk just ahead. Slash him in the back a few times and he's toast. Head off the right screen to the next area. ----Area 2---- Power-Ups: Yellow Orb Butterflies: One Drop down to the right. Walk to the right, watch for the dark spot on the ground as this is a spear trap. Jump over it to the stairlike formation of cliffs and climb it. Ninjas drop down as you fall so either aim up with your ranged weapon or jump and slash them as they drop. Either way, we're climbing up and right. There is a ninja near the edge to the right, slash him and jump right - do not drop. This is a spear trap pit after all. Run down the slope you land on while slashing enemies. Jump over the dark spot (trap) to the right and kill the three ninjas that will appear. Slide down the cliff. Slash the wall ninjas as you come up to them. Hit the ground and head right. There are a lot of short cliffs to the right. Jump up them while killing enemies but watch the walls closely. There are the dark trap spots on some of the walls. So maintaina brisk pace, but stay away from landing near walls if you can help it at all. Move right along the slope after killing the blue ninja/ Slide down the ledge to the right and kill the wall ninja. To the right is a wicker chest. This is right out in the open, on the ground. Open it up and take the yellow orb. Keeping to the right now. Climb the wall and destroy the wall ninja. Slash the ninja that jumps off the ledge and continue to climb the cliffs. Right before the tall cliff, there is an orange ninja. Let's leave him alone for now. At the top of the cliff, kill the ninjas but watch out for the monk. As always he jumps around tossing fireballs. We will want to jump and slash him in the air and slash him in the back when he is on the ground. He doesn't take long to destroy. Head back, kill the orange ninja, and take the butterfly. Climb the cliff once more and head off the right side to the next area. ----Area 3---- **BOSS** Koume is a seemingly young girl with a penchant for explosives. She has a few tricks up her sleeve. If the bushes in the back shake, she will leap out of the bushes and toss some grenades at the height of her jump. What you will want to do is stand near the middle of the screen and leap up as she does, and slash her in midair. This will disrupt her attack, and cause her to drop to the ground. When she gets up, she will be temporarily stunned. She will do a kick when she regains her senses. If you are using Kage, you can hit her at the edge of your attack before she kicks and leaves. If you are using Chihiro, then use your fudo as it is safer. Koume can also come out fromt he side and toss grenades. It is very dangerous to engage her now, but you can. You can slash her while you dodge in between the set of four grenades she tosses - dangerous. Kage at least can stay at the opposite side and lob grenades, moving at times to avoid far flung grenades. Chihiro might be best off waiting. After she finishes a volley she will either run offscreen or stack some new grenades. If she runs offscreen, she will either jump out of the bushes or come back onscreen to lob grenades once more. If she _stacks_ grenades in a pile, run over and slash the grenades to do a nice bit of Damage to Koume, but none to yourself. Koume seems a little tricky at first, but she crumples pretty easily once you know you can devastate two of her techniques. Please note that if you catch koume on the fall after she jumps out of the bushes her grenades will explode in midair. ****Hard and Expert: I've found that her power is vastly increased on higher difficulties. Unless you are going for a chain, take great care to stand out of range of her kick. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LK3.4: Stage 4: Flight ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ We're up int he mountain here. A new enemy, diving birds, are present here. They make a screech before they fly straight down, so watch above for them. ----Area 1---- Power-Ups: Health Up x2 Butterflies: None *There is a health right above the starting point, but you will need a higher jump to reach it.* Move right slashing ninjas. Only jump to the kite ninjas if you can hit them. It is easier with shurikens, but don't get overly concerned if the fudo cannot reach them. Jump to the ledge on the right and run up. If you can jump to the top, you can maintain your chain. If this is your first time here, don't be overly concerned about the chaining. Instead, you should have the slide skill by now. On the first ledge you come to, there is a low passage. You can slide through this - do so. Kill the two blue ninjas in here, then the orange ninja. He drops an orange magatama. This is a health-up item. Take it, then return left and slide back out. Climb the next cliff. Run up the cliff using your range or reach weapon against the kite ninjas here. When you even out at the top, you will see a few plateaus and a ninja on top. Leap up and slash the ninja. You can leap up further and destroy the kite ninja if you want. Do the same for the ninjas to the right - but be careful, they toss grenades. Move right. Watch out for the ninja dogs. They run quickly onscreen but a simple slash should be enough to stop them. As you climb the series of pits to the right, there will be diving birds. Strike them as they dive. Sidestep, turn and slice. You will eventually come to a slope. Run down the slope killing enemies, making short jumps to slash the ninjas on the cliffs. The ground evens out, keep right. There are two white monks to the right. You can get a pretty fair combo if you can chain most of the hits on these together. Use the diving birds and nearby ninjas to bridge the chain when they get far away, but for the most part you can just pursue them. ----Area 2---- Power-Ups: Yellow Orb Butterflies: One We're going to do some serious climbing now. Run to the wall, climb it, jump and kill the ninja. Get to the top of this climb in precisely this manner - alternating walls as you go. When the stage starts going right again, kill the blue ninja and red ninja on the ledges to the right. Move right, stay on the ground so that the birds don't take you down too quickly. Kill the ninjas you come to, and those above you jump up and use the range attack on the ninjas above. Move with deliberate speed, dodge the birds and strike them down. You don't want them to gang up. On the bridge, kill the orange ninja for a yellow orb. Take it and continue to the right. Kill the ninjas on the hills you come to, then climb to the top. Jump up to the wall at the upper right. Run up, and even out at the top. Move forward, there is a hole in the ground. Head down here. Essentially, follow the pathw hile killing ninjas and you will find a wicker chest. This is a butterfly chest, so open it and take the butterfly for a refill. Please note that if you left any birds alive they might be in here. In that case, stay above them, jump in place and strike down with your ranged attack until they are vanquished - then proceed down to the chest. Head back up. Heading right, just jump between the platforms slashing ninjas. Drop through the platforms when you need to. Just chain them over to the righthand side of the area, then enter the third area at this point. ----Area 3---- Power-Ups: None Butterflies: One Head right down the hill, killing blue and green ninjas. Jump only when you want to slash past a ninja on a hill. When the ground evens out - keep it up. There will be a red ninja on the platform hill just ahead, jump and slash him and continue right. Continually slash as you walk to strike down any ninja dogs in your path. Get to the cliff face, and climb it. Jump from the cliff to the platforms, kill the ninjas, and jump back to the cliff. Climb to the top and head right. Destroy the ninjas on the hills you come to, but watch out most for the dogs and birds. Move at a deliberate speed, slaying these fiends as they come close. When you come to the tall hill of platforms, we are going to go somewhat slow since this is probably your first time here and your ninja is still a little weak. Climb it one platform at a time. Dodge the birds and kill the bird that is attacking before moving on. Let the ninjas attack before you jump up and kill them. At the top, jump to the ledge you see. Climb it, head right. Kill the ninjas on the ground and finish with the orange ninja. Take his butterfly for some healing, thne head off the screen to the right. ----Area 4---- **BOSS** Kaede is Koume's sister and has the best set of hips and thighs in the game. AHEM! That is to say, she is a little trickier than her little sister. Kaede attacks primarily with paper shikigami. There is always a gold paper, which is vulnerable, but you should only attack it during Kaede's specific attack sequences. When the battle starts, Kaede has to make a floating platform to swing her beautiful gams over so you have some time. Slash away at her when the battle starts and get one jump slash in as she rises into the air. At this point, she erects a barrier of her paper bird shikigami so fall back. Kaede can act in three ways. One attack is she disperses her paper birds. You should slash at these birds as they fly toward you. When you hit the gold bird it will destroy the rest and hurt Kaedae. The other is that she will toss the barrier at you. You should stay just off the middle of the screen and dash to the side when the barrier comes down. Slash that sucker as it bounces toward you, and when you hit the gold centre it will cause damage to Kaede herself. The last is another barrier toss, as a circle that moves back and forth. Again, strike at it until you connect with the centre. When her health is below half, she may fly at you. Just dodge her at this point. After hitting her barrier attacks three times, she drops to the ground. Attack her with three slashes then back away from her as she gets up. If she summons a new barrier right away, she might attack with either circling paper birds, or stretching paper birds. For the circling, simply move in past the paper as they circle and strike Kaede multiple times. For the stretching, jump away as it stretches. It's best to just avoid this attack if Kaede is casuing you a lot of damage. And for the paper birds that move across the screen, jump to a hill, then jump above or between them. And finally, she can just run at you and strike. If she does run at you, dash away to avoid the strike. She might be summoning her paper dudes at this point. She is the trickiest yet, but keep it up and her hips will hit the ground with a resounding thud. What a waste. ****Hard: Kaede has a new attack where she will have the paper shikigami circle from the air outward. If you stand near the lower platform of the righthand hill, you can usually strike the gold talisman in the lead. ****Expert: Her new attack for expert is to use the stretching attack from the air. Well my darling, we can still clearly see the gold paper bird and we can still cleanly slash it. Sorry love, but we have to. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LK3.5: Stage 5: Twilight ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----Area 1---- Power-Ups: Grey Orb, Health Up Butterflies: None From the start, leap up and slash the kite ninja. Drop down with a down slash and kill those below. Then, leap up and down killing kites and grounds until you come to the ledge. Drop down to the bottom. You will see an opening in the left wall. Entrez vous. Kill the three ninjas in here while climbing up and left. You will come to a wicker chest. Slash it apart to reveal a grey orb. Head down and right. Running across the ground, you can jump up and kill the ninjas on the plateaus if you wish, or you can just avoid them if score isn't a concern at this point. Further right there will be diving birds, however, so when one appears make sure you kill it before moving on. You will see a large ledge and cliff in midair. The path sort of splits here, and we want to head up. We could go ruight, it's just a lot of fights, but we want to go up for the health power-up yes? So climb to the top of that ledge. Kill the blue ninja. Run and jump, and air dash right off the ledge and you should land on another large ledge with black wall. Right. Climb up the platforms above you, watch out for the crows. Kill them with a ranged weapon before you jump. When you see the next large black-walled ledge, grab the bottom of it and move left like a monkey under it. At the left edge, left go. Standing above the left edge, run and jump out but angle back right and air dash into the wall. This should let you grab it. Climb up. Mind the crows, jump up, and grab the next ceiling. Move left again, dodging diving birds and killing them before you proceed. Drop down at the left edge, kill the crow. Climb the ledges above you and move right across them. You will come to a hole, jump across it. Kill the blue ninjas here and keep moving up and right. You will come to an orange ninja - slash him for a health up item. Now you just have to move right through the ninjas and crows to the edge. You will notice a path that meets up with the split we took earlier. But unless you are trolling for points, head off the right edge. ----Area 2---- Power-Ups: Red Orb, Blue Orb Butterflies: One A waterfall. Move right and start climbing the ledges as you go. When you come to a tall wall, don't climb it but instead the ledges above you that the ninjas are on. Slash them from below and climb up and left. *note that there is a blue orb around here (near the right wall) but you need a high jump for it, power jumping right from the platforms and latching onto the wall. See the backtracxking for more details.* When you get to the left edge with the diving birds and such, we are going to drop down and hug the left walls with our air dash. Kind of Hug, slide, drop, dash. do this until you come to a wicker chest. Crack that baby open for a Red Orb. This wasn't to far done, so use the walls to climb back up - mind the diving birds. When we are back to where we were, climb the wall on the left. Jump right and kill the lower ninja. Kill the birds by dodging and slashing before you kill the higher ninja. Climb up. You will come to a thin tunnel. Kill the red ninja on the ground, then use your long range attack on the wall ninja above. This is essentially how you want to climb this tunnel. For the wall ninjas get on the wall below them and slash or long range up. For the blue and reds, let them attack, then run up the wall and pop up beside them with a steel surprise. When you leave the tunnel, there will be a large cliff wall to the left. But we are heading right. Make your way to the wall to the far right. There will be a flock of birds after you. Kill them all before you even attempt to climb. And so we start our climb, first up the platforms the ninjas are on, making sure to kill any new birds before proceeding. And then up and left. Keeping at this path takes us to a slope, then a wall. Climb teh wall, kill the orange ninjas for a healing butterfly. Run right. You will approach the edge of the area. Now, there is a split here. If we take the lower route, we can get a magic up. If we take the top route, we can get a health up. There is a ledge just above the edge of the screen. If you have sufficiently high jump, you can dash jump up fromt his ledge to a wall above. If not, we have to take the lower path. ----Area 3---- Power-Ups: Health Up, Magic Up Butterflies: One *Health up requires you to take the upper path from Area 2, you need a high level jump to make it there.* You will be in a tunnel. Head right and climb the wall, killing enemies. You will eventually be required to head right. Do so. When you see the two plateaus stacked like so: +----+ | | | | +--+----+--+ | | | | Kill the ninjas and move to the top. Jump up and left from the top and latch onto the wall. Climb up, and dash jump up and left. Latch ontot he wall and climb up. Jump from this wall into the chamber. You will find a magic up here. A blue magatama that increases your maximum MP. Head back down to the stacked plateaus from here. Jump up the paltforms to the right and you will come to more stacked plateaus with blue ninjas. One will run toward you. Chop him, then get the guys on the plateau and teh kite ninjas above. Hit the ground running right, chop the hell out of anyone on the slope. You can jump for the kite ninjas if you want. The slope goes up then down to the right. Jump up the stair assembly to the right. The next slope up has some bits. Blue ninjas jump from these pits tossing stars. You will want to jump above them and come down with a down strike. There is an orange ninja here, but there are two tengu to the right if you would rather fight them off first. Essentially, the tengu are powerful enemies that dive down and attempt to spear you. If they are above you, they will attempt to hit you with a grenade from the side. basically, we want to jump slash these enemies. Kill any diving birds here first, then jump through the tengu and slash them. If they dive down, get behind them and slash them in the back - they WILL hit you from the front. You can get a fairly decent combo here. Head back, and kill the orange ninja. Take the healing butterfly, then head off the screen past where we fought the tengu. ----Area 4---- **BOSS** We will meet face to face with the primary antagonist, but not fight him directly. He summons two powerful statues, Raijin and Fujin, representing Thunder and Wind. They have certain attacks each and share one. They share an attack where it lifts in the sky and slams down. This causes powerful rocks to fall. You will want to retreat from the statue you are fighting when it does this. Or, look for a gap in the rocks to avoid the attack. Wind can create slashing blades of wind. These follow you for a short while. You will want to retreat to thunder when they get too close. When only Wind is left, he creates these with more frequency at more points on the field. Thunder creates bolts of lightning form his hands or the sky. You can see these before they strike, as dark bolts. So you just have to stand between these to avoid them. When only Thunder is left, he drops multiple small lightning bolts fromt he sky with relatively high frequency. You can stand betweem them, but it can get aggravating. You will want to retreat from Thunder when the blades from wind come in at you. So what do we do? O O /T\ /W\ | | / \ / \ +----+ +----+ \_____________________/ The battlefield is fairly simple, with Wind on the right and Thunder on the left. Except for the rock stomp move, they are immobile. So what you want to do is go between the two of them, slashing at each - they have separate life bars. You want to concentrate on Thunder, as he has the more dangerous final. As you slash them, they will grey out. They will be immune like this, but soon colourize again. If they start to raise afte rthey get their colour back, then back off because they may be doing the rock stomp. When one is destroyed, the other is more or less lit up the rest of the fight. You should consider doing equal damage to them, so that you can kill one right after the other. ****Hard and Expert: The big difference in Hard and Expert from Normal is that the winds are now super high. You can hardly move against them even when you run. And Fujin does create more wind blades, and Raijin create slightning more often. Let the wind push you to Thunder, and activate Flash if you have it set. This is the attack-up ninjitsu. Use it to just melt Thunder away. Once he is destroyed, use hit and run tactics on Wind. If the air blades come down after you on your trek across the field of heavy wind, then jump and air-dash. Let the wind push you back if too many airblades form above Fujin. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LK3.6: Stage 6: Caverns ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The caverns have many ceilings to climb. This also means that some of your lightning ninjistu cannot work properly here. ----Area 1---- Power-Ups: Magic Up Butterflies: None Run right down the slope chopping ninjas. As for the ceiling ninjas, use your long range weapon if you want to destroy them at all. Watch out at the bottom of the slope - a spiked floor. Jump up and grab the ceiling and head right. Drop down beside the blue ninja you come to to be sure you have passed the spike floor. Chop him in the face and keep right. To climb this area, we must jump to the wall while slashing the wall ninjas. Then we must jump to the ninjas waiting on ledges and slash them. If you are having trouble, let them attack before you launch your assault. At the top, there is a slope down left. There is a passage straight above you with a magic up item, but you will probably need Jump 3 to reach it. So let's head down and left, chopping ninjas as per usual. When the ground evens out, there will be a spike floor. Jump up to the ceiling and head left, killing any ninjas on the ceiling with you. When you coem to a spiked ceiling, drop down. Move left until you see another spiked floor. Jump up to the ceiling and again move left. Drop at the next spiked ceiling, up at the next spiked floor. Follow this ceiling all the way left and drop. Kill the ninjas you land beside, then head left. Climb this narrow passage. There are ninjas jumping from pits to the right so pick your steps carefully. You don't want to get hit by them. When you see them jump above them and down strike. The slope afterwards has some blue fire moving about. Avoid it, and kill the ninjas as you head right. Let the blue fire before the ledge come close to you and then jump away from it and climb the ledge. Keep going right, there's anothe rledge, then some flat ground with a lot of ninjas. Chop them up and use your long range attack on the ceiling ninjas. ----Area 2---- Power-Ups: Health Up Butterflies: One Run up the slope to the right, killing the blue ninjas as you go. Jump up to the ledge, kill the singular sword ninja here and head to the far left of this higher tunnel. There is a passage here leading up that is full of bats. The bats can just be avoided or taken out with your long range weapon. They just fly back and forth and as such are relatively benign. To use an example from the popular tvtropes, the bats are ironically not the "Goddamned Bats" of The Legend of Kage 2 :). There is a slope to the right at the top of this tunnel. Just like the first area, there is also a small chamber up here with a power-up, health-up. If you have Jump 3, leap up and snack it. Otherwise, keep going right. Slice the ninjas you come to to ribbons. Eventually you coem to a tunnel up. This has blue fire and wall ninjas. You want to run up, then jump beneath a wall ninja as you see them and cut up at them. This is fairly easy, though you will sometimes have to wait for a blue fire to move out of the way. Head left at the top. The stationary ninjas here toss shurikens, so watch out for them at a distance. Climb the platforms left while chopping these ninjas. Eventually, you can jump up and head right. Run down this tunnel, using your dash slice on any ninjas. Jump up at the end and do the same as you run left. You will go back and forth as you make your way up like this until you find a tunnel up with small chamber tributaries. Jump into each of these, and kill the orange ninja for a healing butterfly. At the top, make your way right killing ninjas. At the edge of the screen, don't go any further. Instead, head back a bit and run and jump up and right to a wall above. This is an upper path. Take it. ----Area 3---- Power-Ups: Red Orb Butterflies: One Assuming you took the upper path in Area 2, head right and drop down the tunnel at the right. Hit the ground and head right to the slope. Follow it right as you chop those ninjas up. Head down, then left. Always killing ninjas as you go. As you head left, you can see the slope above. There are a lot of platforms here, but it's alright to stay mostly ont he ground. When you come to a hole, pass it and you will meet an orange ninja. Kill him for the red orb. Head down and right fromt his orange ninja and you will come to another slope. head down it, killing the ninjas - sometimes more appear behinf you. But watch out at the bottom as the ground evens out because there will be two white monks jumping around down here. As always, they jump and toss fireballs. This means as always, jump and slash them in midair, and hit them in the backs when they land. When they are vanquished, let's head right to the next tunnel up. Attack the wall ninjas from a distance with your long range attack, and a little further up slow your ascent. There are leaping guys with katars here. You should let one leap in front of you, then slash him to death. If you go to fast, you will be dog-piled by them. At the top, there is an orange ninja. Kill him, take the butterfly for some healing. Move off the screen to the right. ----Area 4---- **BOSS** Ayame is Kaede and Koume's sister. She is very much oriented in magic. Slash her as she raises into the air. For the first half of her life bar, she has two attacks. She will summon two streams of lightning to attack one wall. These will move along the wall. For the first half of the fight you can stay on the other wall, but that changes later. For this portion of the fight, you will want to hit Ayame while following the streams. When she flies near you, slash her and use a long range attack when she is away - Kage has better luck in this fight due to his shurikens the first time through. The other attack comes right after the streams. When she lowers the streams, head down the wall to nearly the bottom. She will toss the blue sphere at you, but it will electrify a portion of the wall she tosses it at. Instead, jump down and run up the other wall behind her and cut her to ribbons. During the second half of her fight, you must stay between the streams. If Chihiro has only a level 2 Fudo, she cannot hit Ayame. Instead she must wait for the streams to drop and jump past Ayame with a slash. Kage can go nuts with his shurikens as he moves along with the streams. We need to stay betweent he streams because otherwise, the balls she tosses behind herself might hit you. Now, the second attack focuses two streams. Stay on the righthand side and if you are using Kage, toss shurikens up at an angle at her. Using Chihiro, just go up and attack only if your fudo can reach Ayame. Both characters will watch the red orb and stay just ahead of it. Move down just ahead of it. Reach the ground and jump off the wall and move left. The two balls should disappear as the streams touch, just before you're hit. You could try to squeeze between the streams and attack Ayame directly. This take spractice, jump up past the blue stream and dash to the left wall. Jump past the orange stream and attack Ayame. You'd better hope the payoff is worth the danger. If you have plenty of health, run through a stream and jump out and chop Ayame. This will drop her, and you can pretty much keep her on the ground after that by blitzing her with attacks. Necessary for Boss Rush. This is hard for Chihiro, so you might want to try to force some new skills in the previous stages. ****Hard and Expert: Ayame is a little faster, but it's virtually the same fight. You may want to use Flash, the attack-up Ninjitsu, after you drop her to the floor or while she is next to the wall tossing orbs. But it doesn't change too much. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LK3.7: Stage 7: Onslaught ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ We're heading back through the rain to the village. ----Area 1---- Power-Ups: Yellow Orb Butterflies: None This is as per usual, move down the slope tot he right slashing ninjas making the occasional jump to kill kite ninjas. Watch out for jumping ninja dogs on the ground. When you come to the ledge, jump through the red kite ninjas and slash them on the way down. This will allow for a decent shain between the slope and the ground down here. Move across the ground to the right chopping the ninja dogs and any blue ninjas and use your long range technique on the ninjas ont he plateau. Slash the ninjas on the slope to the right and your chain may be ending here. If you can make most of the cliff in one jump it might continue, otherwise climb it slowly so as to avoid the blue flames. At the top, kill the blue ninja. Jump up over the next cliff and kill the blue ninja here. Move right and kill the grey ninja. Keep up the chain as you head right up the slope below a plateau. At the plateau, kill the two grey nninjas at top, drop down and kill the blue, then slay any blues and dogs on the ground as you move right. At the step-like formation leading down to the right, kill a kite ninja and arc in toward the ground ninja on the cliff below it. Do this as you head down. You will encounter some grey ninjas on a plateau to the right. Use your long range technique on the sucker at the top. Keep this up as you head right - do not jump up on top of those rock column plateaus. Keep going right, there are ninjas jumping from holes. Either hit them with a downwards attack or your long range. Check the pits for a wicker chest. This holds a Yellow Orb. Get this on your first time through the level. On subsequent visits, it would be best to avoid pits altogether. After the pits head right. Chop a ground ninja, jump and slash a kite ninja. Keep this up to the right side of the screen then enter Area 2. ----Area 2---- Power-Ups: Health Up Butterflies: Two You start near a giant suit of armor. Now this will raise its sword and chop as it floats toward you. You should be able to start at least an 18 hit combo on this guy, then get it above 20 on enarby ninjas. Basically, walk past it chopping. It will swing its sword as you pass. When it turns to face you again you must again walk past it chopping. Timed right, he will never hit you. Jump up and kill the kite ninja after this, then head right chopping more enemies to maintain your combo. You can keep it pretty high if you destroy all of the kite ninjas above the slope down to the right. At the bottom of the slope, you can either destroy some kite ninjas and climb the wall if you want to increase the combo further. Or you can open that wicker chest for a healing butterfly. Once you start climbing you should use ranged attacks on the kite ninjas as they fly just out of range of your standard attack. At the top head right doing the normal jump and slash the kite ninja, slash the ninja on the ground pattern. When you reach the slope there will be many ninja dogs so you may want to dash attack them or swing just as they lunge for you. The dogs lead into a fireball monk. As always, strike him in the air and slash him in the back when he's on the ground. If you want to keep your chain on the slope to the right you will need to dash and then dash attack the fleamen-like enemies you see. They do little jumps and attack with katars, but a dash attack should stop them. Jump to the top of the plateaus to the right and kill the ninjas from top to bottom. There is an orange ninja on the ledge to the right. Slash him for a Health Up. Nice. Continue right after jumping up. There will be a tall series of plateaus here. Kill all ninjas on it, the topmost you can take out with a ranged attack. Kill the orange ninja last, he will drop a healing butterfly. Run off the screen to the right. ----Area 3---- **BOSS** Tsuchigumo is a giant spider lacking articulation. Alright, this giant spider can be powerful but he has a definite pattern so he is very exploitable. You can jump and hand from the webs setting across the arena, it's just like moving along a ceiling except you can jump up. Before we get into the battle, he has to light the ground on fire. If you jump up and hold onto the thread above him you can hit him _seven_ times before the battle actualy starts in earnest. I really, really suggets you do so! When he turns around to face you, jump away! He has two general big attacks. He will start with a damaging cloud. He will rush toward you before he fires this. Jump out of the way. The second in the pattern is that he will stay in the centre of the screen and fire a three-way shot at you. I like to avoid it by dropping to a lower web, then jumping, then air-dashing to the other side. You know this is coming if he moves to the centre of the web. He turns quickly to face you and he fires three volleys. Alright, he ALWAYs alternates these attacks. In between them, he will approach you. The first order of business is that he will restore any burnt web. Once the web is restored he will walk toward you punching. You will either want to use your long range attack on him while moving back or move past him slicing, then past him again when he turns to face you. you have to be quick, however, and you may want to retreat after only a few chops. It's usually best to move from side to side. If he pauses a long time before attacking again, he is likely going to use his poison cloud. When you are far away, he will burn the web you are on. If you find yourself approaching fire after a jump, air-dash in the opposite direction. If you are on the line, either jump or drop to safety. He always repeats this pattern, so if you can exploit it he WILL drop. He _is_ powerful, but very predictable. If you are having problems with your current stasts or game familiarity, stay out of reach and use your long ranged attack. ****Hard: Tsuchigumo is pretty much the same on Hard. Just be more careful of his punch attacks. The big difference is less time to hit him before he spits the cloud. ****Expert: Expert changes up the battle. You have only two threads at any one time to hang on to. This seriously limits your options for hurting Tsuchigumo. As such, you may consder Barrier at this point. Barrier ensures 50 hits or more on Tsuchigumo, but more importantly it is actually damaging him consistently. It is not a powerful technique, so you will have to cast it a few times. Otherwise, just take it slow and steady and heal when necessary. There's even less time to hit him before he spits the poison cloud, so you should definitely consider the spells at you disposal. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LK3.8: Stage 8: The Castle ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ We are getting close to those dastardly n'er-do-wells now! ----Area 1---- Power-Ups: None Butterflies: None Move right slashign all ninjas in your path. The Castle Wall Ninja here tosses three large blades. Jump up between them and shash her down. You will see an enemy with a chain to the right. Attack him with your ranged weapon, or move in and slice him after he retracts his chain. Or dash attack. There is another on the building before the cliff. Get him with an upslash. Move right alternating between wall and ground ninja. That kite ninja is a little out of the way if you are considering chaining. The next building to the right, do the same. Alternate between wall and ground ninjas. After this building, there will be ninja dogs so be ready with the low attack. At the next wall, hit the castle wall ninja with your ranged weapon and climb the ledge, Beware of the ninja dogs on this part of the level! Slash them as you come up to them. Jump and slash any of the wall ninja, but always beware of the dogs. You mayw ant to take this section slow if it's your first time, so you can respond tot he puppies. The pit to the right has a lot of fleamen near it. Do not fall in the pit or they will drop down with you. Kill them, and take out the chain enemy above only if you want the points. There are a number of chain enemies on the building to the right. If you want the points from them, kill the wall ninja first then use your ranged weapon on the chain dudes. Drop down the cliff to the right and take the chain enemy out from below. There are two white monks to the right. You will want to kill these guys by hitting them in the back multiple times after they land. But do not jump after them here, the chain guy on the roof will hit you, and a ninja or two will appear when you land. So dispose of them, then try to spawn some ninjas after you kill the chain dude from below. Head off the side of the screen to the right. ----Area 2---- Power-Ups: Magic Up, Health Up Butterflies: One Jump to the top of this building while killing ninjas, and head right at the top. Drop down to the cliff at the lower right and kill the ninja here. Move right along the ground, killing ninjas. Kill the chain guys from below. Remember, the fudo can go through some surfaces the shurikens cannot even when the shurikens have pierce. For the chain guys along the wall, Kage will have to approach them form the side. If you aren't concerned about score, you can still use shurikens to do this with a jump and tossing of a volley. At the top, stay on the ground and not the castle. Drop off the cliff to the right and you will land next to a wicker chest. Break it open. Take the healing butterfly and continue to the right climbing over rock and grass. Take out the chain guys from below and chop the fleamen. When we come to a drop off, hit the wall and slide all the way down to find another wicker chest. Break it open. Take the magic up here. Climb out of this deep hole and kill any ninja in your path. There is a health up at the top of this building, but you will need jump 4 to get it. If you have it, there are a few breaks in the thick platforms above where you can jump up to them with a dash jump. If you walk to the end of the building, the right end of the roof, the health up is there. If you go along the ground or the building, the enemies are pretty sparse. Kill any ninjas or ninja dogs with a slash, and take out all chain guys from below with your ranged attack. Leaving this building, there is a red ninja on a small building to the right. Walk below the buildings witht he ninjas and you will come to two white monks. Now, you want to chain your hits on them. Slash at them from behind when they hit the ground and use the ninjas on top of the building to bridge your chain if they get far away. When they are dead, clean up the ninjas then head right once again. Head off the right side of the screen to Area 3. ----Area 3---- Power-Ups: Yellow Orb Butterflies: One Drop down the ledge to the right and move across the ground killing fleamen and ninjas. Climb the wall to the right and leap up upon the roof. Leap up to the grey platform then roof above this. Start jumping up and left across the roofs. Jump up between the blades the castle wall ninja tosses and slice her down. You will come to the left side of the area. Jump on up. Move across this roof to the far right. There are rock tossers here. Jump up beside them and slash them. There are chain dudes to the left if you want to kill them, but if you are focused on getting through the level just kill the chain guy above you from below. Move up and left. You will see three rock tossers in a triangle formation. Kill them all. Climb up either side to the long, thick grey platform. There are rock tossers on the way up to the right (better) and chain guys on the left (more difficult) so pick base don who you like fighting more. Or do both if you want the points ;). Fromt his platform, climb up to the next roof near a grey brick wall. Kill the rock guy, You will want to stay on the righthand side as you climb up. Kill any chain guys with your long range from below, and slice the rock guys from the side. But if you keep going up the righthand side you will find a wicker chest. Open it for a yellow Orb. Make your way up and left from here and you will see a grey brick wall here. There is a chain guy near a wicker box. Kill him from below, then open the box for a healing butterfly. You can kill him from directly below with the fudo, from an angle with the shurikens. Move right from here and jump up to kill the rock tosser. Jump to the thick grye platform above and move left. There is a wall ninja up here. Jump up between the blades and kill her or just use your ranged attack from below. The top roof is just above. Move along the grey platform below it and strike down the chain guys above with your ranged attack before jumping up. When you do jump up, you can head right off the screen for the next area. ----Area 4---- **BOSS** The three sisters, and Kaede's luscious legs are back! They will all attack in unison. But they have very definite attack patterns based on which sisters are still alive. Before the battle starts, of course you should slash the group before they fly into the sky. *Koume: Koume is the easiest sister in this fight. She tosses her grenades, but the grenades explode on the roofs. She should be the last priority. When all three are alive, Koume sits in the upper left corner tossing grenades forward. These mostly hit in front of her, the middle roof under Kaede, but you can still get hit on the third roof under Ayame. When only two are left, she will move down to the lower left roof and toss grenades forward. It makes going after other sisters a pain in the ass, but she will be pretty easy herself to fight. When only Koume is left, she flies around tossing grenades. At this point, it is best to stay below a roof and use your ranged attack as she passes. *Kaede: Our darling with the thick hips, Kaede forms a barrier with her paper birds right from the start, this makes her difficult to attack unless you use your ranged attack. But she is the most desireable sister to go after first (in more ways than one). Her attack will disperse the paper birds. They will fly in at you, so you should drop what ypu are doing and attack them as they approach - keeping an eye on the edge of the screen first. When only two sisters are left, she will use the attack where the papers move across the screen, two groups from left and right. You will want to get on a roof and jump over these. When only Kaede remains, she will use the stretchy paper birds attack. It seems to chase you around, and so you should circle around and attack Kaede. *Ayame: The eldest sister attacks with her spheres. Her attack when all three are present is to launch a sphere into the middle of the screen which will cause a beam below it. It moves aback and forth in line with the roof and it basically moves toward you. But it cannot reach the edges of the screen, so you can stay here. *The middle roof is safe from Ayame's intitial attacks as well, though not from Koume's grenades. She will use her horizontal beams when it is two sisters left. She they will move similarly to the first beam, but cannot hit you on the ground. She tends to stay on the righthand roof. When only Ayame remains, the orbs will fly toward you. Just run to the side, jump up and dash past Ayame with a slash. *Delta: The three sisters have an attack that they will only perform when they are all together. They will come together in the top centre, then spread out in an electrified circle. Attack them as they spiral toward you and with enough hits they will drop to the ground - the perfect opportunity to score a few good hits. It's best to attack with your ranged weapon. Koume usually takes her good time getting to the centre, so take the time to slash the hell out of Kaede in the meanwhile. *Order: Choose the order based on which sister falls first. One thing you can also try is to get all of their health down very low before killing any of them, then finishing the other two before they have a chance to change styles. Kaede - Koume - Ayame (preferred) It is difficult to attack Ayame when Koume is tossing bombs at that portion of ground under the righthand roof Ayame likes to rest on. It is safe to attack Koume from below, so take her out first. Koume - Kaede - Ayame Again, attack Kaede before Ayame. Her moving papers will become a pain in the arse otherwise. It is hard to avoid them in this order, since ayame is using her beams. Attack from below with the long range and get up and slash or use your Up+Attack if you have it when the beams are out of the way. Ayame - Kaede - Koume Koume is easy enough to dodge and if they are both together you can probably kill them about the same time. *Attack: It takes a long time, but Kage can do this with his shurikens. If you want to do this with a little more gusto, I like to kill Kaede first but start the assault on Ayame first. Jump and slash her until Kaede tosses the paper dolls. Destroy these before you refocus your assault on Ayame. When they start to go in for the Delta attack, attack Kaede with your blade, then ranged attack when her shield forms. Drop down through the roof when Koume finally flies over and break the Delta attack. Once the attack is broken, approach Kaede and slash her to ribbons. You should be able to combo her enough that she will soon drop. When Koume and and Ayame are left, kill Koume by standing below her and tossing shurikens or at least level 2 fudo when the beam from Ayame is low. Jump and slash or use up+attack when the beam is high. Ayame is the only one left. Cycle around. When her orbs come down after you, run to the side, jump up and dash past Ayame with a slash. A few hits like this and she falls to the roof, crumpled. Slash her to ribbons until she rises up and casts her spell again. Then repeat the pattern. This can be an endurance match, but as long as you kill Kaede first or have her weak enought o kill very soon after the first then it is very passable. ****Hard: You really, really have to go for an order in this difficulty and expert if you want your life to be anyways easy. Ha. The gals are much stronger, but Ayame is the the only one we are really going to worry about. Her streams go closer to the walls now, so you can't jump up past them when they are at the extremes. You should stay on the middle roof when they get over here. Use your up-strike on Kaede when her paper shikigami disperse. Typically, this makes her fall under the magnitude of her own hips. When she is down, the birds won't be coming in, so concentrate on Ayame again. It's good to cut off the shikigami anyways, there are more and they move much more quickly. Get Ayame almost to death then concentrate on Kaede and defeat her. Stand below Koume for phase 2 using your up-slash or ranged weapon but duck when Ayame's beam comes down because it comes much lower. Ayame should just be a few hits after this. ****Expert: The first and third phases of our desired strategy are the same. The beams go all the way to the walls now so you have to risk the central roof. The second phase is the big change. Ayame's beams go all the way to the floor. You have to go between them to be safe. But Koume is tossing grenades into the centre, yes? Well, she is but if we head over to the right end of the tree between the beams and duck, it shouldn't hit us. When they rise, upslash (Up+Attack) Koume 3 or 4 times, then return to the centre. You should have Ayame weak enough to quickly finish her in phase 3. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LK3.9: Stage 9: The Castle ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Tower has teh same properties as the Caverns. Avoid the lightning bolt spells. ----Area 1---- Power-Ups: Grey Orb, Red Orb, Health Up Butterflies: None The Tower is similar to the Caverns. There are a lot of low ceilings to grab here. From the start move right chopping ninjas. Move right up the staircase that you come to. Move right up the stairs to the right chopping ninjas and fleamen until you arrive at the grey ninjas. Stop going right at this point, and instead turn and head left. There will be an oraneg ninja here. Chop him down for a Red Orb. Run left up a set of stairs, then down the next. Leap over the next set of stairs and keep going left (killing ninjas, of course). You will see a wicker chest on the floor above. Keep going left and you will see an opening in the ceiling that looks like the stair openings. There is no stairs, so just jump up through it and air-dash right. Head right and open the wicker chest for a grey orb. Of course, there is sometimes a chain enemy somewhere in this hallway, so use your ranged attack on him. Head back and left, be careful as new chain guys might be here. Drop through the hole. Head right chopping ninjas. Jump over the first staircase. Climb the second you come to and jump over the third. Destroy the chain warrior here. Climb the stairs past him and kill chain warriors as head right. Climb _down_ the staircase after the next few chain guys and you will come to a short passage. Slide throught he passage. There will be a wicker chest in this small chamber. Crack it open for a health upgrade. Slide back out of the chamber and climb the stairs again to the left. Move left through this hall and jump over the passage down you come to. Keep going left, and beware of chain warriors. Climb the stairs up at the far left, and head right at the top (killing blue ninjas of course). The sliding doors you come to will reveal two grey ninjas each. Slice them each before they can hit the ground. Head right, kill the black ninja and continue to the right. There will be a few more blacks and blues to the right. Either kill them for the sake of a large combo chain, or head off the screen to the right. ----Area 2---- Power-Ups: Blue Orb Butterflies: One head right, chopping ninjas, up then down the two staircases you come to. When you come to a hole, drop through it. Kill all of the wall ninjas (doubling as sword ninjas) and continue right up the staircase. Kill the blue ninjas here, then head to the left. You will se an orange ninja on the floor above. We'll get to him soon. In fact there is a staircase to the left. Climb it and head right from the top. Kill the grey ninja, then the orange ninja for a blue orb. There's a dead end here, so rush back left and leap over the staircase we took previously. Climb the stairs at the far left up and up killing ninjas. There are multiple sets of stairs, but don't stop climbing until the hall opens out to the right. At this point, certainly, head right. The sliding doors that open here reveal a black ninja. Well, don't go after him and his other ninja buddy just yet. There is also a monk here, and you will want to combo the monk by slashing him in the back and jumping to slice him midair to maintain your combo. The ninjas are a helpful bridge between hits if the monk gets a little far away. Either way, kill them after the monk has dropped. Climb the stairs to the right and it will be the same idea. There will be two white monks, and a black ninja fromt he sliding doors. Concentrate on aerial and back slashes for the monks and bridge them witht he black ninja if they get too far apart. When that mess is cleaned up, head right. Climb the stairs. There is an orange ninja behind a wooden column. Either kill him now if you need the healing butterfly, or kill the second set of white monks to the right first. Either way, it's your choice. There are plenty of ninjas to bridge hits on the white monks, so try for at least a 20 hit combo here. When the monks are dead, you can go off the screen to the right to face the boss. ----Area 3---- **BOSS** This giant mask that strangely talks like a robot is one of the easier bosses in the game. Yes, he has a lot of attacks, but there is a very definite way to deal with them and he seems to crumple from less hits than some other bosses. The mask has four faces he can use: *Red with short hair and moustache: --------------------------------- Spits fire orbs at you, two at a time. These explode out from the surface they hit, covering a column reaching roughly a screen in length. You should alternate between the top and bottom of the arena. When he spits down, jump up past him with a few slashes. When he spits up, drop down past him with a few slashes. When he is around 4/5 dead, he will move and shoot them a little more quickly. *Parted in the middle hair with devil horns: ------------------------------------------ Launches a slow, ninja-seeking sphere. Basically, stand below him and the orb will come toward you. Jump up next to the mask and slice him to ribbons while the ball comes back toward you. Avoid the ball if it gets close. It's harder to get a long chain of hits on him when he turns red at about 1/5 HP. He will launch three orbs at a time, so make sure you have a clear space to get through or past them. *Bluish face with high eyebrows: ------------------------------ Stays at the upper centre above the platform and spits out debris. You should stand below or hang above him and dodge to the side the debris is not touching. He will tear it around the battlefield either clockwise or counter clockwise. You can jump up beside him at the opposite side of the stream and slash him to bits - you can cause a lot of damage in this phase. When the stream approaches you, either jump over the mask if it is coming from below, or drop down through the platform, then jump up to the other side if it is coming from above. Slash him at the other side and keep this up until he vanishes to start a new face. *He can appear ont he bottom screen too, you will want to upslash (Up+attack) him until you have to dodge. He will move around when he turns red. This makes dodging a little more difficult, but also a priority. As long as you are prepared to cut your combo short, you should be able to dodge him. You may have to use the wall to get to the other side of him, however. *Happy eyes with red marks on face: --------------------------------- He will move around the field. Everytime he opens his mouth, a blue beam of energy forms across the field in line with you. Move away from this as the energy pulses across. He is slow, so don't worry about it too much. You can concentrate on chopping at him, making the occasional movement out of the way of the energy pulse. When he turns red, he creates two streams that cross. Perhaps he has never watched ghostbusters? Either way, they are still east to avoid, only you will have to jump or drop away from them and you won't get as many hits in on the mask. *The Verdict: ----------- The mask is a simple enemy. Just follow the methods for dealing with each form and he drops easily. He doesn't turn up the heat until he has only a fifth of his life remaining - no problem. And here's something else to consider: If he turns red while you are fighting a form he was previously white in, he will not use his red mode attacks until he changes faces again. So rack up the hits! ****Hard: The mask become smuch more difficult as the modes increase. He is still pretty fragile, but becomes much more vicious. *Happy: The beams come much faster, you will see the lines for two on the screen at once. So you have to be always on the move. Expert is the same. *Blue Spitter: His blast will circle the room twice, giving you a little more time to work on him. *Horned: He will fire three blasts at once. Let them come toward you then jump past them and get a few hits in on him. *Fire: He's just a bit faster. ****Expert: Only two faces change it up on Expert from Hard. He is a pretty scary enemy now so you will want to consider using Ninjitsu when he is in the red. *Blue Spitter: He no longer circles the room with his blast but instead moves it towards you for a given block of time. You _cannot_ dodge form side to side. You have to dodge from top to bottom or bottom to top and then change sides. This is the only way to give you enough time to react. He's no longer the damage soaking cow he was on hard and normal. *Horned: Fires five energy balls, even on his regular colour. So you have to wait for these to group up as they fly toward you, get out of the way and try to score a few hits on the mask. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LK3.10: Stage 10: Abyss ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This is similar to the castle, though a little more exciting. You'll see! ----Area 1---- Power-Ups: None Butterflies: None This is a freefalling section. You will basically be able to move back and forth using your attacks. Do _not_ use helmsplitter or spincut here or you will be stuck doing it until you are hit. Jump off the edge, and head left. Three blue ninjas will drop down near you, slice them all. The second wave is three green ninjas, spread even across the screen. It would be best to hit them with a ranged attack, maybe on a diagonal then a horizontal. Stay just off centre for the next wave and hit the blue ninjas and fleaman from the side. Some fleamen drop from the upper left just after the first part of the wave and slash them from the side or attack with a ranged weapon starting on the diagonal. Four fleamen next - middle, right, left, middle. Destroy them as they arrive. Two ninjas, get off the side of them because they kick at those between them. A fleaman follows through the centre, get him from the left because a green ninja follows down the righthand side. You automatically run to Area 2 after hitting the ground. ----Area 2---- Power-Ups: Yellow Orb, Magic Up Butterflies: One The main threat in this area is falling debris. You can knock the debris away with your slash attack, but it's sometimes best to wait for it to pause before you make a move. From the start, climb the wall to the right. At the top, jump up to the thick grey platform and latch on to the bottom. Move elft across this platform. At the left end, drop and air dash left. You should land on a platform. Jump up and right through the small platform. Head right and you will see a few ninjas. Kill the black ninja, then the orange ninja. Take the yellow orb. Drop down to the bottom and head left across the ground. Strike the fleamen as the bounce toward you, and destroy any rock tossers above. Jump up beside them and slash away. Downslash as you go back down though, as some fleamen probably have appeared below you. You need Jump 4 to get the gold ninja on the building to the left after the small hill, so keep going left. If you stick to the ground, making the occassional leaps onto the buildings to striek some enemies you shall do fine. Stay out of the pits on the ground, and use your ranged attack on the chain warriors. After the tall cliff, you will encounter an orange ninja. Slice him for a healing butterfly. Move steadily down and left. Destroy the chain warriors with ranged attacks, or a dash slice if you can manage it. On the climb up and to the left, the fleamen just jump in place so you can take this slow, making sure to kill every enemy around. Heading down and left again - more chain warriors. You will, as per usual, want to use your ranged attack on them. There are a load of ninjas and a singular monk tot he left. Concentrate on hitting the monk's back. No jumping this time - there is still the debris falling from above to worry about. ----Area 3---- Power-Ups: Health Up, Grey Orb Butterflies: Two Drop off the cliff to the left, and move across the ground. Use your ranged attack on the chain warriors and look up to the rock tosses. Kill them, and leap up upon their platform. Up upon this platform, you will be beneath the edge of a thick grey platform. Run-jump left then air-dash right onto the thick grey platform. Jump right slashing kite ninjas to the thick grey platform that was above you at the start. Climb the tower at the far right. Maybe wait for the debris to stop falling between jumps. At the top, kill the orange ninja and take the healing butterfly from him. Drop left with a down slash (helmsplitter or spincut). When you hit the platform again. Back on the ground where we fought those rock tossers, head left and climb the cliffs. You can kill the enemies on the platforms to the right if you want the points, but it's going to be very difficult to chain here. at the top of the hill, head left. Head down the hill killing the ninjas. The platforms leading up and left? Check backtracking if you have jump 4. Even in spite of the debris, take your time with the chain guys. Use your ranged attack on them, of course. Climb the cliff at the left. There is a chain guy here, past a cliff on a platform. Kill him with ranged then drop down to the left. Destroy the rock tossers to the left. Jump up to the hill. Drop left. If you have Jump 3, you can reach a wicker chest from this cliff. Just run and jump up to it. See backtracking for more details. Keep heading left and the stage soon ends. If you had a small jumping ability, then you missed a lot of items here. come back with Jump 3 or 4. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LK3.11: Stage 11: Inferno ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Back at the castle again. There are new riflemen here, but no more debris. So that is great. You should have Jump 3 by now, so you may consider a bit of back tracking. ----Area 1---- Power-Ups: Health Up Butterflies: None Head right from the start. You can climb this building, there are more enemies on the ground if you want points from fleamen or black ninjas. At the second building, you can stay at the ground fighting enemies if you wish or you can kill the rock tosser at the top in addition to the dudes down here. Or skip them if that's your thing. At the third building, slash these rock tossers on top of the building and chain them together with the ninjas below. The cliff to the right meets up with the roof of a building. Drop down and head right. The riflemen are best killed by attacking from above or behind. Destroy them and the ninjas as you head right. The slope down and right has riflemen and either a rock tosser or chain warrior with them on two buildings. Destroy both sets from below with your ranged weapon and jump up onto the cliff at the right. The two riflemen to the right: attack the first by downslashing him. Helmsplitter or Spincut does fine. Take a short jump over the pit behind the second rifleman. Slash his back up to kill him. The next ledge to the right after a few ninjas has a rifleman and chain warrior. Jump and use your ranged attack after they attack to score hits until both are dead. OR, you could jump over and past them. A chain warrior is on a roof to the right. Drop into the hole beneath the building to find a wicker chest. Open it for a health up. Kill any fleamen that jumped in with you, then the chain warrior above with your ranged attack from below. Head down the next slope to the right killing ninjas and fleamen. For the ninjas and riflemen on the roof, destroy them from below. After the slope, drop down the series of cliffs to the right killing ninjas. The way to Area 2 is to the right, after the building and rifleman. ----Area 2---- Power-Ups: Red Orb Butterflies: One You start next to a large building. Climb up via jumping, using the middles of the platforms. You will arrive between two Rock Tossers. Slash them to ribbons before they can attack you from the side. With that done, climb the next building via the righthand wall. Kill the ninjas as you pass, then the rock tosser on the lefthand side of the roof. Ah, I was looking out for your welfare the whole time! The third building ascent. Climb it in the centre. Kill the three ninjas near the base, but stay in the centre so you can get between the rock tossers on the roof. Slaughter them. The fourth building ascent. Just run up the wall, there aren't normally enemies here. The fifth building ascent. Three grey ninjas on thick grey platforms. Let them attack, then jump up beside them with a slash. It's cake, baby. At this point, there will be a slope down to the right. Slash apart the fleamen near the building before you descend. Jump up near the rock tossers at the end, though drop after you kill the righthand tosser fromt he left. Move right along the ground and kill the rifleman from below after you deal with the fleamen. There are a few ninjas on the building near the descent to the right. Kill them while you deal with the fleamen on the ground. Alright, during the next up slope, there are two riflemen on a building. Slay them from below. Head right. Near the next cliff base there is a chain warrior. Kill him at a distance. The next building to the right has a series of fleamen in pits and riflemen on platforms. Riflemen can shoot on diagonals, so watch out! Kill the fleamen as they pop up, and go firectly below the riflemen to kill them with your ranged attack. Drop down through the second roofed pit around this building. There is a wicker chest down here. Crack it open for a red orb. Climb back up and kill the nearby riflemen. Move right, kill the ground ninjas, then leap up and kill the castle wall ninja lass. Jump up again, over the cliff to the right. Jump ontot he roof, and pass the rifleman this way, drop through the next roof so as not to be shot by the rifleman that's next still. You will also be put near a pit. Drop in, and look at the wicker chest. Open it for a healing butterfly. Snack it, then jump out of the pit. Jump over tot he rifleman at the right after he fires. Hit him with a down strike and finish him off if need be. Move under the next and kill him at a distance. Kill the pit fleaman if you want. Drop down off the cliff to the right. Alright, there are some grey ninjas on this building. The end is just ahead. If you want, there are two chain warriors on the ground and two rock tossers on the rock. Fight them all if you want, but the safe route is to go all the way right on the roof then drop down, which forces you quickly into the next area. ----Area 3---- Power-Ups: Blue Orb Butterflies: None The last area of this level. Let's go! This power-up is easier to nab with at least jump 3. Move right, you can kill the enemies on the second building if you want but we are most interested in the third. On the second building, jump up from roof to roof killing the ninjas you land next to. At the highest point, jump left to the roof of the second building to find an orange ninja. Kill him for a blue orb and grab it. Drop down. There's really not a whole lot to say about the tall buildings to the right. You can reach the roof on most of them - nothing is there mind you. But you can kill the enemie son the platforms and the kite ninjas between the buildings. Don't plan on chaining here, however, the enemies are too spaced and too troublesome to reach in time. When you're ready, head to the cliff at the base of these tall buildings. Jump high and right so you land behind the rifleman. Kill him. Climb the next cliff right and leap behind the rifleman here, kill him as well. Drop off the cliff to the right. Walk this area, killing the ninjas you come to. Attack the enemies on the roof from below with your ranged weapon. The roofs are short enough that you can maintain your combo. There is one chain warrior on the ground - watch out for him and attack at a distance. It's mostly fleamen after him before the small cliff to the right. Kill the rifleman at the next cliff. There are two Tengu here. There is a rifleman on the ledge up and right. Kill him immediately. Then, jump through the Tengu with a slash. Maintain your combo by using jump slashes at the Tengu. If they drop down, hit them from above or behind. Once the second Tengu dies, immediately jump up and right and attack the black ninja on the ledge further right of where the rifleman was. This should let you maintain your combo for the last few enemies before the stage ends. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LK3.12: Stage 12: Reckoning ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mission 12 is just one area long. I suppose they figured this was a difficult enough fight not to put any extra burden on the player. It is a singular battle against Yukinosuke. It is easily exploitable, though you get slapped hard if you falter. ----Area 1---- **BOSS** *Note, he's immune to the ice barrier. Yukinosuke will approach you. If he jumops, he is going to go for a jump slash. So if he jumps forward, it is best to move forward and have him miss, and counter with an attack of your own. Yukinosuke is actually pretty simple to cheese altogether. If you slash him, he will counter. His counter is to hop back and slash. So, it's easy to hit and run him. And it's very easy to get a 50 hit combo on his first pattern. From a distance, Yukinosuke throws shurikens. He will jump in the air and they fly radially from him. It's simple to stand off centre of Yukiniosuke's position and simply sidestep his shurikens. Up close, he will attempt a rising slash. So, he's really not best left to his own devices. But back to the exploit. If you slash Yuikosuke he will usually jump back and slash. Sometimnes he takes a higher leap forward. If he leaps forward, move forward. If he jumps back, move back. The retaliate as soon as possible. Another viable tactic is to dash attack through him, run and slash. It typically hits twice and will send you clear through to the other side of him. NEVER use this when he is next to a wall. If you want two hits, it's easy enough to strike him twice with your standard attack. When his life is halfway drained, he changes things up a bit. You will still want to hit and run, but he does a triple combo attack as his counter. You can get two slash hits on his back like this if you use the dash attack method but he will likely go straight back into the combo. You don't want him to toss shurikens - they have some homing power this time. you will need to jump as high as possible, then air-dash towards Yukino's position. He seems to always break away and use this attack when I fight him, so be ready for it. If you let him stay even a moderate distance away from you, he will use his dash attack fromt he first fight on you. You cannot block this, and it is very fast. He will flash and make a "shing" noise, so jump out of the way. It's kind of nasty to cheese the poor bugger, but if you're here for a guaranteed strategy, this one works with just a small contribution of reflex on your part. Please note that if you like the dash attack method, there is also the option of walking quickly through him while slashing, but this gets you hit more times than enough. ****Hard: Yukinosuke's fight is much different once he has lost half of his health. At this point, when you try to slash him he will counter. It's an upslash when you attack him from below and a dash attack when you attack him from behind. But he needs to teleport to do these counters. As soon as the screen goes black you should make a short hop. Never attack him from above, but always attack him from the side. Try to get him to run into the walls and slash his back. If he makes a short hop, make sure to attack him now as it is an easy sell. If he uses his three hit counter combo, stay near the end of it and slash him some more - free hits. It's a tricky fight, but as long as you hop every time the screen goes black you should manage. ****Expert: Yukinosuke is actually worlds easier on Expert, and it's because he is infinitely more predictable. During the teleport phase if you attack him from the side he will alternate two attacks after the teleport. Either his dash - jump over it, or a shuriken toss. The shuriken toss is the easiest time to hit him. Move forward and slash the shuriken (remember - he always appears behind you) and wait for him to jump forward. Slice him at least twice while he jumps. If he leaps back, take a short hop back as he might be doing his dash attack or triple combo (hit him toward the end). Then alternate the teleport attacks and rack up the damage in this way. As long as you recognize the pattern here, he should go down eventually. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LK3.13: Stage 13: The End ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mission 13 is the last level. Get ready! You may want to get the rest of the power-ups before coming here. Not to mention Skills. Half MP is VERY helpful... You can score around 50 hits in the first area, and easily 50 on the final boss so this should be an easy S rank. ----Area 1---- Power-Ups: None Butterflies: One This area is a flat plain. It has a lot of tough enemies, so it is more of a miniboss rush than anything. Head right, you will find two tengu and an animated armour. I stick with the armor first. You will get hit a few times, but it is worth it for the at least 40 hit combo. Move through the armour and attack as you do. Everytime it faces you, move through it slashing. The Tengu will be hit too. If the Tengu fly down and face you, consider hanging back and using your ranged attack to maintain the combo until they fly back up. Once the armor is destroyed, jump up and air slash the Tengu to death. This should result in a massive combo. Move right. Kill ninjas, but once you find the three Tengu, concentrate on them. I like to do them in via jumping up through them slashing, then coming back down with a Helmsplitter or Spincut. Afte rthat connects, slash away as you fall tot he ground then jump back up. Alright, there are blue flames to the right. Stay below them. Nevermind the kites if you can't reach them with your ranged. Instead, concentrate on dodging their spread of shurikens and killing the black ninjas on the ground. there are another three Tengu to the right, next to some blue fires. I would say attack them the same way you did the previous group - jump up slashing, helmsplit or spin cut down, when it connects slash as you continue down, then jump up and do it all again. Pay attention to the tall grass as you pass the blue fire to the right. There is a wicker chest hidden here. Break it open, then take the healing butterfly and head right off the screen. ----Area 2---- **BOSS** Yoshiro will be your opponent this time. Well, the stone altar is your actual target. We need to break the force field on it to attack it though. Yoshiro splits into clones. You should attack with your ranged weapon the clone immediately next to you. Then, you can aim up and attack them as they move back and forth above. This can be hard with Chihiro. If you want to straight up slash a clone, attack from the side while they are paused. *Note: On Normal difficulty, the real Yoshiro seems to go in order from bottom to top for the first few phases. So first fromt he bottom, second from the bottom, and so on. It seems this way, but don't quote me on this! :) If you hit the real Yoshiro, the shield over the stone altar will break. Chihiro at least has an advantage here as she does serious damage to it. Kage's advantage of course is that he can hit the real Yoshiro pretty much every time. After the force field gets re-erected, he will appear in the sky and toss green swords. You can stand between the blades of the first two volleys. For the second two, the swords point at you and then fire - two times per volley. Just move from one side of the screen to the other. Now, Yoshiro will dash across the stage, leaving swords low on the screen to fire down at you. Do _not_ try to stay ahead of these with jumps. Let him pass, then make a small jump between the blades to dodge them. jump up past them as they still spin, and you shouldn't get hit. His fourth dash will come a bit later and damage you. You should count 1... 2.. 3... and jump and dash. Once you know the timing on this, he shouldn't get you. At this point, the pattern repeats himself. He can take a while, you may want to raise your attack when you go after the altar. ****Hard: His order of clones is going to be randomized now. Also, the biggest change is that his dash attack may come sooner or later - it can arrive as early as the second dash during that phase. Find a comfortable spot to jump up between the swords and count the time it takes him to arrive gaain for a pass with the swords. If he is taking too long, leap up high and dash when you hear him below. ****Expert: All of the hard mode changes apply, however he does have one new technique. All of the sword volleys (minus those he dashses with) aim at you now. So just walk back and forth. This shouldn't confront you none. ----Area 3---- **Final BOSS** Why, hello there Black Viper? How is Red Falcon today? Alright, you fight this sucker on his ribcage. His heart is the weak point and it starts out surrounded by ribs. You can play this safe, or for points. Basically, jump past the sealed heart as you slash. I like to jump up through it, hit it with a helmsplitter or spin cutt, then slash left as I land on the ribs to the left. Then, amke the return trip. Be careful not to fall down. There is blue fire and damaging legions of faceless husks. But at the top, his two floating hands toss energy balls (radial burst) and punch at you. These are easy to avoid if you take it slow. If you are going for points by jumping back and forth across the heart you will get more than 50 hits but can;t respind as quickly to the attacks. One the ribcage bursts, get as many hits on the heart as you can. One hand will periodically grab the heart and retreat. Follow it downt he ribcage and hit it until it lets go of the heart. Watch out - you are coming to the legions below if you see blue fire, it's time to check on the other side. They will keep it up with punches (sometimes both at the same time) and energy balls, but also squeeze green blood out of themselves. This can damage you, of course, but starts out slowly so move out of the way as soon as you see its production. If Yoshiro creates a thin laser below his mouth, get to the sides of his ribs because it will very soon expand into a huge blast. This seems to be a one hit kill. Stand on the side of the ribs and leap and use your ranged attack on the heart. He is powerful, but as long as you take the time to predict and dodge attacks after his ribcage breaks, he should go down. Just be a little adventurous and opportunistic when attacking the heart! ****Hard and Expert: This boss is a little more powerful, yes, but this fight is very much the same. The hands grab the heart sooner after it gets returned, true. So make sure you get your combo during phase 1, and play it safe during phase 2. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | LK4: Backtracking | -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= There is some backtracking required to get all of the power-ups. Essentially, you need better skills to earn these. Due to the less predictable style of earning skills, you may have to do more backtracking than is listed here. In that case, just use the core walkthrough for the stage. ------Mission 2------ ********* Grey Orb: -------- You will need at least Jump 2 to get the grey orb. Enter Area 3 through the upper path of Area 2 (stay on top of the trees). Once you arrive in Area 3, climb the trees immediately above you with dashing jumps. near the top of the treesm you will find an orange ninja. Kill him for the grey orb. ------Mission 4------ ********* Health Up: --------- You will need at least Jump 3. In area 1, there is a Health Up just above the starting point. Head up to the slop, then dash jump left to reach the ledge. Open the chest for the health-up. Much easier and no air dashing with Jump 4. ------Mission 5------ ********* Blue Orb: -------- Requires Jump 3 In Area 2, reach the righthand wall after the first climb of platforms. From here, climb up four platforms from the left. You should be on a platform with a black wall. Run and jump up and to the right, latch onto the wall. Break open the box and take the orb. Health: ------- Requires Jump 2 *Area 2: In Area 2, make your way to the bridge at the end. See the platform above? Jump up to it. From this platform, nearest the edge of the screen, run and jump up and air dash onto the wall above. This is the upper path. *Area 3: Alright, we need to be careful to stay on the upper path. Move right, jumping the gaps you come to. If you cannot see the platform, look for two things: A tree or a jumping blue ninja. Both of these need a platform so use them as a guide for where to fall. After the platform with the two trees, get to the next. From this platform, run and jump right and air dash. You will make it to a cliff, or on top of the cliff. Either way, get on up. Slide throught he small passage that is here. Destroy the wicker chest here for a health-up. ------Mission 6------ ********* Magic Up: -------- Requires Jump 3 After the first vertical climb in Area 1, there is a slope down and left. Above this slope is a narrow passage. Dash jump up tot his passage and climb the walls to find the chest holding the magic up. Health Up: --------- Requires Jump 3 After the first tunnel of bats in Area 2, there is a slope up and right. You can run and jump up here, to the left and grab the wall of a small tunnel way up high. Enter the small chamber, and open the chets for a health-up. ------Mission 8------ ********* Health Up: --------- Requires Jump 4 In Area 2, there is the long pit with the wicker chest at the bottom. Well, the building that is above this pit has a health-up at the top, far right. To reach it, make your way to the top of the building and look for castle wall ninjas throwing their three blades. Kill the ninja, then you can get on the nearest platform and run+jump up to the thick grey platform. Reaching the wicker chest with the upgrade is a piece of cake after this. Just move to the right along the roof and drop down two character's widths to the left of the edge. ------Mission 10------ ********** Magic Up: -------- Requires Jump 4 Area 2 At the first cliff along the ground in area 2, jump up and left. There will be two platforms that look like this: +-------+------+ | +------+ +-------+ Thick and thin platforms. Get to the second one, the higher of the two. Run and jump right, then air dash left to land on top of the thick grey platform up here. Move left now, there are black ninjas around an orange ninja. Slay the black ninjas, and then the orange. Take the Magic up power-up. Health Up and Grey Orb: ---------------------- Requires Jump 4 Area 3 In area 3, there is a large climb to the left of the start. That is, multiple cliffs. what we want to do is climb them, then drop down the cliffs after this. There will be a grey ninja on a thick platform. Jump up, kill him, jump up and left. This can be a tricky section so wait for the debris to stop before jumping if you have issues. Jump left from here and fall in line with the building. Land on the platform. Jump up and left again, fall in line with the thin broken building and land on the platform. Since it's such a narrow platform, let the debris stop regardless of you philosophy of approach. Jump again left. Carry yourself a little past the thin section of building as it's wider than it seems. Kill the ninja here. Again to the left, fall in line with the building and fall in line with the next building. Hit the platform and wait for the debris to stop. Jump left and air dash at the arc of your jump. You should land on a small platform to the right of some rock tossers. Ignore them. Dash and jump right and up and arc back around (air dash if need be) to the thick platform above you on the destroyed section of building. Move left. Jump to the next destroyed section. Fall down the MIDDLE of this area. You will land on a thin platform. Kill the ninja, hop across to the next small platform. Run and jump left. You land next to three rock tossers. Kill them all. If you drop below them there is a wicker chest with a butterfly. Anyways, we are worried about power-ups. Jump left and land on another thick platform. Kill the chain warriors here with your ranged weapon. Move to the left side of the platform and open the wicker chest for a health-up. But that;s not all kids. Head back to the centre of this platform and jump up and left. Jump 4 will carry you up to another wicker chest. This is a grey orb, so get it and enjoy. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | LK5: Enemies | -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Just the standard enemies of the game. If you need boss help, please see the main wlakthrough. None of these names are necessarily official, but rather are convenient descriptors. Most standard enemies take one or a few hits on normal, but multiple on hard and expert. *Ninja: ----- The standard and most seen enemy of the game, ninjas are found in a variety of colours and flavours. Most ninjas will run toward you and attack, but others still will stand in place, using their projectile. Green Ninja: The weakest ninja. It uses shurikens like the blue ninja, but takes only a single hit even on higher difficulties. Blue Ninja: Uses a single shuriken, and has a penchant for running and jumping with a slash. Red Ninja: Tosses a small incendiary device that hits you with more power than the shuriken and can't be parried. Grey Ninja: Tosses a grenade with an explosion that can also hurt you. This weapon is the most powerful ninja weapon and has some nice knockback force. Black Ninja: Tosses a spread of shurikens. He sacrifices the added power of grenades for a better chance of connecting. It's best to parry through his shurikens and slash him to ribbons. Orange Ninja: Can attack you with a blade up close, but does nothing else. Typically holds a helaing butterfly or a power-up. *Kite Ninja: ---------- The kite ninja move up and down or left and right using the weapon of their given colour. Blue Kite Ninja: Uses the single shuriken. Red Kite Ninja: Uses the small grenade. Grey Kite Ninja: Uses the standard grenade. Black Kite Ninja: Tosses a wave of shurikens. *Kunoichi: -------- The female ninjas of the game. These typically stay on walls. Ceiling/Wall Ninja: She stays on her perch tossing shurikens at you. She tosses them more rapidly a sthe difficulty increases. Jump up near her and slash her. Sword ninja: Sometimes, the kunoichi drop from their perch and run at you. They will use the jump and slash technique primarily when on the ground, but are about equivalent to a blue ninja so no worries. Castle Wall Ninja: She is a different look altogether. She tosses three heavy spinning blades. It's best to jump up between them and slash her. The blades can be deflected but only parried at close distance. *Ninja Dogs: ---------- Their barks give them away, but these swift enemies are hard to anticipate and can get a quick strike in on you. Blue Ninja Dog: Simply runs across the screen. Use a low slash. Red Ninja Dog: Leaps at you when he gets close. Use a medium slash. The thing is, they get disorienting when they come in groups. *Claw Men: -------- Little hunched "fleamen" like enemies that use claws or katars to fight. They take a couple of hits. White: Jump on diagonals down tunnels. Only found in the Caverns, let them land above you on the wall and slash them apart. Brown: Moves forward and jumps. It's best to hit them as they jump or as they land. Some jump in place. *Diving Bird: ----------- A red vulture that dives with a scream. It's best to sidestep their dive and kill them right away. If you do not, quite a few of them could build up and seriously complicate movement. *Crow: ---- They make a dive when you come close. Slice them as you approach. If they dive beneath you, make sure they don't hit you as they rise back up to pass off the screen. *Bat: --- Only in the caverns, bats are simple enemies that fly back and forth. It's extremely hard to combo them, but you can wait in their tunnel with your ranged weapon if you want to kill them anyways. *Blue Fire: --------- A blue, spirit-like flame that moves toward you. Just let it move in and dodge around it. Be on your merry way. *Heavy Chain Warrior: ------------------- Attacks with a chain. One of the more difficult enemies to fight directly. Unless you are trying to rock a combo, attack them with your ranged attack. Their chain can hit you with the twirl and with the toss. If you have the choice to attack from below - take it. Fromt he side, let them swing their chain then move in either with a dash attack or a few slash attacks. *Rock Tosser: ----------- This guy drops rocks on your head from above. When you stand beside him, he attacks with a powerful blade. It's best to leap up beside him while you attack and finish him off before he can attack with his blade. *Rifleman: -------- A very powerfule nemy. He attacks slowly, however, and has to aim at you. He can turn around and aim on diagonals, however. The safest way to kill him is to either jump above him with a downslash then finish him from the side or to attack form directly below. *Monk: ---- One of two miniboss monks. There are grey and white versions of the monks. The only realy difference is that the white monks take more hits. Either way, their attack pattern is the same. They leap about spitting fire. I like to jump up and slash past them in the air. When they land, stay behind them and you won't get burnt. *Tengu: ----- Powerful flying miniboss type enemies. They will toss grenades from the sky, and fly down to attack with their spears. Their spear attack has a bit of lag so move behind them and slash. When they are in the air, combo them by jumping up through them slashing, and coming back through them slashing. *Suit of Armour: -------------- A huge suit of armour with a very powerful sword slash. He is simple to fight, however. Move past him slashing. The sword strike should fall behind you. Just keep moving past him with your slashes and he will drop. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | LK6: Ninjitsu | -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ---LK6.1: The Board--- Throughout the levels you can find coloured orbs. These orbs can be set in a board in a combination that will allow Kage or Chihiro to cast Ninjitsu. The board looks as such: ( )( )( ) ( ) ( ) ( )( )( ) There are eight slots in which to fit orbs. Now, while each spell has a combo required, they can be present in any order just as long as you fulfill the structure requirement. Essentially, you can have spells that are three, four, or six orbs in size. Three: (X)(X)( ) ( )(X)( ) ( )(X)(X) (X) ( ) (X) (X) ( ) (X) ( )( )( ) ( )( )( ) ( )( )( ) ( )( )( ) ( )( )( ) ( )( )( ) (X) ( ) (X) (X) ( ) (X) (X)(X)( ) ( )(X)( ) ( )(X)(X) Four: (X)(X)( ) ( )(X)(X) (X) (X) (X) (X) ( )( )( ) ( )( )( ) ( )( )( ) ( )( )( ) (X) (X) (X) (X) (X)(X)( ) ( )(X)(X) ( )(X)( ) (X) (X) ( )(X)( ) Six: ( )(X)( ) (X)(X)(X) (X) (X) (X) (X) (X)(X)(X) ( )(X)( ) Multiple Spells: (X)(X)(X) (X) (X) ( )(X)(Y) By placing more orbs beside an existing spell, you may be able to make another spell. Not one that is a stronger version or anything like that, but you can place multiple Ninjitsu on the board. You can then scroll through them in the game and cast them as long as you have the Power. Niniitsu is very useful, so try it out if you're having problems. ---LK6.2: The Spells--- Spells are presented as such: ***** Name: Combination: *In-Game Description: ------------------- *Practical Description: --------------------- Cost: They are listed in the order the game presents them. ****** Name: Fireball Combination: RED RED YELLOW *In-Game Description: ------------------- Shoots fireballs in three directions in front of player. *Practical Description: --------------------- Shoots a three-way fireball forward. The two diagonal fireballs fly at 45 degrees from the player. As such, their use is limited and cannot accurately hit enemies on the top screen. They are also fairly slow, severely limiting their use against bosses. I would say take this only as a filler slot, or not even that so you don't accidentally waste the power. Cost: 1 ***** Name: Thunder Combination: RED YELLOW YELLOW *In-Game Description: ------------------- Summons lightning bolt to strike enemy. *Practical Description: --------------------- A lightning bolt streaks down from the sky, damaging any enemy it contacts. The lightning bolt will be cast to the nearest enemy to the player, and can hit enemies on the top and bottom screens. This might be useful if there is a dude in the way of your jumps that you just can't hit. The lightning bolt is stopped by some ceilings and floors though - for instance it cannot be used in the caverns. You won't use the bolt a lot, and if you are Kage you will probably almost surely use shurikens. But unlike fireballs, this makes a decent filler. Cost: 1 ***** Name: Shield Combination: BLUE BLUE YELLOW *In-Game Description: ------------------- Creates two spinning ice crystals to protect player. *Practical Description: --------------------- Exactly as it says, two ice crystals will surround the player, damaging any enemy they come in contact with. Really, it's not as good as it might sound initially. Two crystals offers very little cover and cannot rack up very much damage either. The later shield spells aren't as bad, but this one is best avoided. Cost: 2 ***** Name: Blaze Combination: RED RED RED *In-Game Description: ------------------- Summons a pillar of fire to incinerate enemy. *Practical Description: --------------------- A pillar of fire that goes the height of the bottom screen will be summoned, damaging any enemies in its path. It can score a handful of hits, but it is normally cast right in front of the player. As such, its usefulness is limited solely to minibosses. It costs too much to use effectively on bosses - it won't really dent them. Cost: 3 ***** Name: Storm Combination: YELLOW YELLOW YELLOW *In-Game Description: ------------------- Summons multiple lightning bolts to strike enemy. *Practical Description: --------------------- Well, it will strike multiple enemies, but I find the Thunder spell more useful to be blunt. Storm is going to be useless against large, singular bosses and you can't predict the locations of the bolts as easily. I would rather cast Thunder three times. The same restrictions as Thunder apply here. Cost: 3 ***** Name: Barrier Combination: BLUE BLUE BLUE *In-Game Description: ------------------- Summon 4 spinning crystals to protect player. *Practical Description: --------------------- This is better, but you will probably only want to use it until you get the next barrier up. The four spinning crystals will protect you from contact with normal enemies, but it won't be very effective against boss enemies. Still, it's not a bad spell and is definitely helpful if you are doing a lot of up close combat with waves of ninjas or minibosses. Cost: 4 ***** Name: Ironskin Combination: RED BLUE YELLOW *In-Game Description: ------------------- Temporarily reduces damage taken by player. *Practical Description: --------------------- This is useful, it increases your defense. I believe most folks would like to save any passive skill like this for Glow, but Ironskin has its uses too. Particularly where a large attack is concerned. If you know you can't avoid something, a casting of this might be a split-second saver. Though yes, this situation doesn't come up that much, you will probably find a lot of use for Ironskin in stages 10 and 11's enemies and hazards. Cost: 3 ***** Name: Glow Combination: RED BLUE YELLOW GREY *In-Game Description: ------------------- Restores a small amount of life. *Practical Description: --------------------- A small amoutn indeed, Glow only seems to restore about a fifth or less of Kage's lifebar. Is it useless then? No, certainly not. As you get a larger power bar you can cast this many more times. When you get the half-cost skill then you can cast it even more, almost equalling a full bar of health. It's useful to have on hand if you can cast it at least twice with your current bar, as it lessens the impact of a bad clash with the enemy. Cost: 4 ***** Name: Flash Combination: RED RED BLUE *In-Game Description: ------------------- Temporarily increases player's attack strength. *Practical Description: --------------------- This one is good, especially after you get the half-cost skill. Basically, this should be a situational skill. Cast it right before you know you are going to get the full use out of it. For instance, at a certain point of a boss' pattern of attack. It is TOO expensive to waste, casting it then failing to deliver. But if used right, it is going to cause more damage than most spells. Cost: 4 ***** Name: Gust Combination: BLUE YELLOW YELLOW *In-Game Description: ------------------- Temporarily increases player's speed. *Practical Description: --------------------- Again, this one is situational. Cast this to get a speed boost where you know you can use it to the best of its ability. This is a very useful boost, as it increases both ground speed and attack speed. The extra attack speed is great for large combos - consider it when going for the big ranks. Cost: 4 ***** Name: Inferno Combination: RED RED RED GREY *In-Game Description: ------------------- Summons pillar of fire to assault enemy. *Practical Description: --------------------- While there are multiple pillars here, the same restrictions as blaze again apply here. It is not as strong as it could be, and it falls short where it might really count - bosses. Cost: 5 ***** Name: Tempest Combination: YELLOW YELLOW YELLOW GREY *In-Game Description: ------------------- Summons powerful lightning for massive damage to enemy. *Practical Description: --------------------- It's like Inferno, it really falls short where it counts. Massive damage? The only enemies that could handle massive damage are the bosses. At the very least the bosses will be paused by the spell and hit multiple times so you can start a combo, but think again if you think this is going to be a game breaker. Cost: 5 ***** Name: Phoenix Combination: RED RED RED RED *In-Game Description: ------------------- Summons a firestorm from the lower screen. *Practical Description: --------------------- I know you're getting tired of me dissing the spells in this game. But the Phoenix spell seems to have one purpose - crowd control, and a major drawback - excessive cost. Against a singular target, it can't hit enough to make a difference. For less power, you can just chop the enemies apart and heal any damage. Cost: 6 ***** Name: Shell Combination: BLUE BLUE BLE *In-Game Description: ------------------- Summons bubbles and ice crystals to protect the player. *Practical Description: --------------------- You will become invulverable. Yeah. Invulnerable. While the ice doesn't work against once boss in particular, this is a great spell for most cases. Think about it, you can bypass an enemy's attack and get in a few extra whacks while the ice does its work as well. The cost is high, yes, but then that's what the half MP skill is for. Give it a try sometime. Cost: 6 ***** Name: Nova Combination: YELLOW YELLOW YELLOW YELLOW *In-Game Description: ------------------- Summons a lightning storm to send shocks in all 4 directions. *Practical Description: --------------------- It sounds better than it is. While this is a crowd control spell, the bolts actually have to hit the enemy. So that means not only do you spend a load of power, but you will barely scratch a boss with it. Cost: 6 ***** Name: Dragon Combination: RED RED RED GREY GREY GREY *In-Game Description: ------------------- Summons a giant dragon. *Practical Description: --------------------- Better than previous attack spells, but not tremendous. The dragon will send a stream of fire down the CENTRE of the BOTTOM screen. It can hit 10+ times, and does decent damage, but it's too big of a risk for this much power. After all, if it misses then you're screwed as far as the large cost is concerned. It's meant for bosses but I still prefer to just use my weapons. Cost: 7 ***** Name: Stardust Combination: RED BLUE YELLOW GREY GREY GREY *In-Game Description: ------------------- Calls forth a shower of meteorites to rain down from above. *Practical Description: --------------------- At the very least, this hits both screens. Stardust is powerful, but costly. It is a crowd control, yet the cost is completely ludicrous for most of those situations. As for bosses? ONLY use it against large bosses. Having trouble with a small boss? Well, you will be spitting nails even more after your big, bad, expensive spell only hits him or her three times. Again, only use it against large bosses. But even then, there are better and less costly alternatives. Cost: 7 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | LK7: Skills | -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Skills seem totally arbitrary as to when you earn them. They seem based either on playtime or play style. This is a pain, and overly complicates an otherwise solid action title. Still, they are useful so you should grin and bear it and earn them. I find the ebst way to earn them is to complete stages again and again. Mix up your play style. If you want half cost, and who doesn't, then fight through the normal stages using the earliest thunder or fireball skills. Yeah, they are poor ninjitsu and I'm not sure if this makes a difference, but it's worth a try anyways. You can earn mosts kills before the final boss, and you should earn most of them before boss rush. *Body Split: ---------- -Both- Creates clones of your ninja to deal out added damage and assist in connecting hits. Hold down the attack button to create the clones, then use L+R to cancel them. They consume your magic power over time. I've earned up to five clones. *Jump: ---- -Both- This represents your jumping ability. I think this stops at level 4. Either way it makes getting power-ups easier or actually possible, and generally simplifies the levels. *Spincut: ------- -Chihiro- This is Chihiro's downwards attack. It differs from Kage in that the actual attack is held out farther from Chihiro's body. This means that once it connects she can more easily retreat to safety if need be. *Parry: ----- -Both- This is a super useful move. It protects you and sort of helps maintain combos. Parry lets you slash shurikens back at the enemy. *Leafcutter: ---------- -Chihiro- Chihiro's up+attack skillm this has a wider hit area at the top than Kage. Use it primarily for hitting enemies on platforms above you. *Slide: ----- -Both- Hold down and press jump to slide. This harms enemies, but you will be using it most either to evade things or get into small passages. *Multislash: ---------- -Both- Both characters can get multislash (up to three hits) but it is a bit different between them. Chihiro's ends witha powerful rising strike. Kage's ends with a powerful slash that hits multiple times. This is sometimes a liability when you are trying to fight certain bosses or get a good combo, so you can change it back to two slashes. *Leapfrog: -------- This skill allows you to jump off of an enemy. Press jump as you approach them and you will be sent higher. Jump 4 kind of limits its use, but it can help you get some power-ups before Jump 4. *Tempt: ----- -Chihiro- Chihiro flirts and charms nearby enemies. They will just stand there, unmoving. This actually consumes life so it has very limited use. The only use I can fathom is as a start to a combo, actually. Press up+ninitsu to use it. *Half Cost: --------- -Both- One of the most udeful skills, this allows you to cast ninjitsu at half cost. Earn it before ever attempting boss rush. *Helmsplit: --------- -Kage- Kage's down+attack in the air. It is directly below his body, so it is much easier to aim than Chihiro's Spincut. *Mistblade: --------- -Kage- Kage definitely has teh advantage with his up+attack skill. It includes a kick on the way down. This makes it an effective crowd control skill. Attack the dudes on the platform above and right next to you simultaneously. *Pierce: ------ -Kage- Allows his shurikens to actively pierce enemies. Excellent for combos. *Length: ------ -Chihiro- Not shown on the skill screen, but you can increase the length of her fudo. A level 3 fudo should be your goal for boss rush. *Extra Shurikens: --------------- -Kage- Again, not shown on the skill screen. Allows Kage to have multiple shuriken on the screen, roughly 5 at max. Useful, as it allows a volley of shurikens to do more than neglible damage to targets. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | LK8: Art Gallery | -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The art gallery pictures are earned through completing certain tasks in the game. Some of these are... quite difficult for the sake of a picture, but they are there for your earning pleasure nonetheless :). -----No Requirement----- 2/48 These are picture swith no set requirement. Available fromt he start. *Picture 1 *Picture 3 -----Beat Levels/The Game----- 19/48 These require you to clear levels or the game. You just have to pass them, you are not required to earn a big score for this one. The expert 11 art though, it seems I got it only after I cleared expert 12. So keep that in mind. I think that prologue must count as stage 0 in terms of the game itself. So really, you get the expert stage arts in stage N+1 by my scale. *Picture 2: Clear normal with Kage *Picture 3: Clear normal with Chihiro *Picture 12: Clear hard with Kage *Picture 13: Clear hard with Kage *Picture 14: Clear hard with Chihiro *Picture 15: Clear hard with Chihiro *Picture 22: Clear stage 1 in expert *Picture 23: Clear stage 2 in expert *Picture 24: Clear stage 3 in expert *Picture 25: Clear stage 4 in expert *Picture 26: Clear stage 5 in expert *Picture 27: Clear stage 6 in expert *Picture 28: Clear stage 8 in expert *Picture 29: Clear stage 11 in expert *Picture 30: Clear stage 12 in expert *Picture 35: Clear expert with Kage *Picture 36: Clear expert with Kage *Picture 37: Clear expert with Chihiro *Picture 38: Clear expert with Chihiro -----Earn Ranks----- 9/48 To earn these arts, you need to get a certain number of ranks. The important thing to note here is that they must _all_ be in the _same_ file. So you cannot split the duty between Kage and Chihiro. So, you have a choice of character. Who is better at earning the ranks? Kage. he's weaker. I'm serious here. Kage's weaker attack is essentiall in getting mor ehits on minibosses and bosses, leading to larger combo bonuses. Also, he has much more survivability. Especially in expert and hard, this will count for a lot. That, and shurikens are better at maintaining chains. they do not count as a hit each, but they WILL maintain the combo. S ranks are actually much easier in hard and expert. The enemies often take two hits standard, and the bosses take more damage. It's _so_ much easier to earn 40 or more hits. Ninjitsu? Well, Barrier hits the enemy many, mahy times and is useful in racking up hits for the combo. You only need 36 S ranks, remember. So it's 13 from normal, 12 from hard, and 11 from expert as a standard fare. You will want to avoid Abyss in both hard and expert as the falling debris complicates things greatly. ALSO note, an S rank counts for A and B. So don't worry about losing out! *Picture 5: 10 B Ranks *Picture 6: 20 B Ranks *Picture 7: 36 B Ranks *Picture 9: 10 A Ranks *Picture 10: 20 A Ranks *Picture 11: 36 A Ranks *Picture 31: 10 S Ranks *Picture 32: 20 S Ranks *Picture 33: 36 S Ranks -----Playtime----- 1/48 Easy, just play for the alloted time. Play through the three difficulties and this is a certainty. *Picture 8: Play for 2 or more hours. -----Jumping----- 2/48 It's based on the amount of times you've jumped during the game. Believe me, you will earn these very easily. This -is- a jumping game ;). *Picture 16: Jump 500 times *Picture 17: Jump 1000 times -----Master Ninjitsu---- 2/48 Gather all of the orbs hidden in the levels. Use them to create every ninjitsu spell then you will earn this art after a level. Use the Ninjitsu section of the guide to see the combos. *Picture 18: Master all ninjitsu *Picture 19: Master all ninjitsu -----Master Skills---- 2/48 Master all available skills. You only need to do this on one file. *Picture 20: Master all skills *Picture 21: Master all skills -----Combos---- 2/48 Perform a combo of the given length. 50 is a number you will see a lot of in the hard and expert modes so these arts are a sure thing if you're going for ranks. *Picture 39: Perform a 20 hit combo *Picture 40: Perform a 50 hit combo -----Maxing Stats---- 4/48 Find all blue magatams (magic) and orange magatams (health) to earn these arts. *Picture 41: Kage maxes Life *Picture 42: Chihiro maxes Life *Picture 43: Kage maxes [magic] Power *Picture 44: Chihiro maxes [magic] Power -----Boss Rush---- 4/48 Boss rush is a series of fights against the bosses of the game. You will earn a small bit of ehaling and one dot of ninjitsu power between each battle. Speed is the name of the game, and we want to kill these suckers as fast as possible. Attack up is a must, and either Glow or Barrier. Glow for staying power, Barrier for help against a certain handful of bosses. Chihiro is more powerful and thus is better for most bosses except Yoshiro. But for both characters, you NEED to take risks to get the 15 mins or less payoff. *Picture 45: Kage Beats Boss Rush *Picture 46: Chihiro Beats Boss Rush *Picture 47: Kage Beats Boss Rush under 15 minutes *Picture 48: Chihiro Beats Boss Rush under 15 minutes -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | LK9: Unlockables | -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= There are only a handful of unlockables in Kage 2. Hard Mode: Clear normal mode. Expert mode: Clear hard mode. Boss Rush: Clear normal mode. *Note that these unlockables apply to the file they are unlocked in _only_. You must unlock them again in other files. Sound Test: Clear hard mode. Art Gallery Images: Each has its own requirement. See the above section. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | LK10: Credits | -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Thanks go to Taito of course for the Kage license. And of course thanks to Square Enix for allowing this and other Taito licenses to continue. Thanks to whatever mix of the two was involved in this game. Kage 2 was such an odd choice. But you guys obviously love this and other 'ninja' 2D games and it really shows. Thanks to Kaede for having such amazing legs. And thanks to the readers for putting up with the comments ;). This is my 75th full guide as the gameFAQs crow flies, so thanks all :). Thanks of course go out to my hosts, as without them you would not be reading this guide. Websites with permission to use this Guide: www.GameFAQS.com www.neoseeker.com faqs.IGN.com www.1up.com www.honestgamer.com www.supercheats.com Game by SQUARE ENIX / TAITO