Sengoku 3 FAQ v1.2 by CT Chua About Sengoku 3 (Sengoku Denshou 2001 in Japan) Sengoku 3 is a cooperative scrolling fighter, or beat-em-up, developed by Noise Factory, a subsidiary of SNK after it went bankrupt. Guidelines to using this FAQ: This document protected by US Copyright Law, and the Berne Copyright Convention of 1976. It is for your personal and private use only. You may not, without prior written permission by me, CT Chua, the author of this FAQ, to reprint, or reproduced in any form, in part or in whole. This is a free document that cannot be used in any form of real-life monetary trade or transaction. This file is hosted solely on GameFAQs (http://www.gamefaqs.com). "Sengoku 3", as well as its characters, is copyrighted to (c) SNK Playmore. =============================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [001] Contents To make it easier to get to the section you want to, use the Ctrl+F search function of your computer and search for one of the numbers [00#] listed below [001]: Contents [001a]: YouTube video links [001b]: Version history [002]: Technical terms [003]: Normal attacks [003a] - Standing attacks [003b] - Running attacks [003c] - Airborne attacks [003d] - Strategies for utilising normal attacks [003e] - Air combos [003f] - Advanced strategies [003g] - Topping the scoreboard [004]: Thrown weapons [005]: Characters and special moves [005a] - Kagetsura [005b] - Falcon [005c] - Kurenai [005d] - Kongoh [005e] - Okuni [005f] - Byakki [006]: Enemies [006a] - Common strategies [006b] - Enemy-specific strategies [007]: Walkthrough [007a] - China [007b] - Italy [007c] - Japan [007d] - Brazil [007e] - France [007f] - Kyoto [008]: Contacts and special thanks [001a]: YouTube video links Most of you probably don't know, but I have put up a few videos demonstrating Some of the things I wrote in this guide. The videos are posted by CLsto. Notice that it is quite similar to my username here "Corlist". I may do more videos regarding techniques and boss fights in the near future. The plate trap: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Isf2lws6Idg The phoenix boss bomb exploit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccRgxJqiNo0 The last boss Byakki "technique": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwu3LfVXC04 The entire Japan stage (very low quality & no sound): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0hpPQ8oFCE So far, there hasn't been any bad comments about the videos, so I'm happy. Even if there is, I'll assume you're a troll and ensure that your comment vanishes as quickly as possbile. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [001b]: Version history Seriously, who'd be interested in a long list of changes that doesn't really affect the FAQ at all? But for the record, in this version of the faq that you're supposedly reading I wanted my FAQ to be free from errors regarding alignment, spelling and overall grammar which might imply unprofessionalism or not giving a damn. I fixed the alignment after using WordPad instead of Notepad (boo!) and also removed or fixed several Captain Obvious statements or other sentences that just sound weird or awkward. Don't learn it the hard way, use WordPad. Why? Look at the following lists. WordPad + Line breaks, spaces and tabs are shown exactly as it is in the browser. + Infinite undos and redos. (as much as your RAM allows) + Wrap-to-window makes typing in 80 character widths like a dream. - Takes somewhat more processing resources. Notepad - Line breaks, spaces and tabs love to mess up when displayed in the browser. Hunting them down is also a nightmare. - Only ONE, pathetic ONE undo or ONE redo. - Typing in 80 character widths is a pain - you need to scroll up and down constantly. + Lightweight and fast. =============================================================================== [002] Technical terms: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First A, Second A, Last A First B, Second B, Last B They refer to particular attacks in the game's combo system. All ground combos must flow from a weaker attack to a stronger attack. It is somewhat similar to magic series in the Marvel's versus series. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Special Specials, basically are moves that use up power from your power gauge. They can either be used to escape by disrupt enemy combos, or as a powerful finishing move to your own combos. Specials are either the Down, Down + A or Down, Down + B specials. There are also throw specials which can only be performed in the exact same situation as normal throws. DMs, or full-screen attacks, are also considered specials. The A+B+C defensive recovery is also considered a special, as its properties and usage are very similar. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Invincibility When something is in this state, it cannot be hit or grabbed. There are many ways you can attain invincibility. Standing up when knocked down, performing specials or defensive escapes, to name a few. Enemies can achieve this by doing a defensive recovery, defensive escape, going into a freefall state or simply just by lying on the floor. You character will be invincible for a very brief moment when he or she successfully hits an enemy with a normal attack. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Grab & Throw A grab is performed automatically when your character walks towards an enemy which is not invincible. You can grab almost any enemy in the game, except the phoenix, the "Evil Door" boss and the last boss. Your character will hold on to his/her foe for a short time and you can perform a throw to the left or right by pressing left or right + A/B respectively. Thrown enemies, as well as its comrades who gets knocked down by the former, go into a freefall state. You can cancel your grab by dashing (double-tap left or right) to either direction, in that case you will launch the target with a body bash. Kongoh is special when it comes to grabs. First, he is able to walk during a grab. Second, he cannot dash to cancel his grab. During the grab animation, your character is vulnerable. While throwing an opponent however, you are fully invincible until you recover. Special throws are accessible to both Kagetsura and Kongoh, which is done by pressing down, up + B. You cannot simply do this standalone, you must grab someone first. Additional note: You can even perform throws on launched enemies, after hitting an airborne enemy with the third of the first B's, hold down left or right and then press any attack button (you can even do a special throw!). It looks rather weird. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Launched state A launched state is caused by either jumping A, a running B, last B or a shuriken. You are able to freely attack launched enemies, as long as they do not block (most bosses do), fall to the ground, run out of life, move out of the screen or use their defensive escape. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Freefall state A "freefall" state is the state where the target is granted invincibility while they are falling to the ground. All last A and dash A attacks, throws, as well as most specials, cause its target to enter a freefall state. Bombs also cause enemies to go into a freefall state. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Defensive escape A defensive escape makes the caster fully invulnerable and leave the screen. It can either refer to the characters' A+B+C special, the vampire's bat escape or the phoenix's escape. Both the phoenix's and the bat's defensive escape triggers when hit exactly 10 times in a continuous chain. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Defensive recovery Most enemies in Sengoku 3 have some form of defensive recovery. Defensive recoveries are a measure to prevent players from standing next to a downed enemy and repeatedly throw out punches. Like character specials, these moves are usually fast as lightning and fully invincible. Enemies perform this move when your character is standing close to them while they stand up. Do the exact opposite, stay a fair distance away, preferably above or below the body, when enemies get up. Ninja girls and samurais may perform moves that resemble defensive recoveries randomly while standing. These are slightly slower and do not possess any invincibility. Below is a list of enemies with defensive recoveries: - Samurais - Ninja girls - Vultures - Frogs - Faces - Old men with bats - All bosses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Parry Not to be confused with blocking, a parry will occur when your character slash attacks at the same time as with a weapon-wielding enemy's attack, causing both weapons to clash. You character will be left in a stun state but it is not cancellable into a special, leaving you vulnerable in a group of enemies. Note that punches, kicks, jumping attacks and specials cannot be parried. Enemies with no wielded weapons also cannot parry your attacks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Blocking Only bosses can block attacks. All real bosses have the ability to block, that is, you will not be able to damage them with normal attacks while they are in a launched state. Combos which do not chain properly will also be vulnerable to blocks. All specials and occasionally, Byakki's last A, cannot be blocked. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Power gauge The power gauge is displayed in the screen right below the health bar. It can hold a maximum of 3 bars. You can charge your power gauge by doing damage to anything (enemies, scenery or otherwise) with anything besides moves that use up your power gauge - that is to say, specials. Certain characters, such as Byakki, charge their power gauge much faster than others. Certain attacks also charge more power than others. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Combo gauge The combo gauge is a pretty unique addition to a side-scrolling fighter. It starts off empty. Whenever you attack an enemy, it fills up a little, but this amount in the gauge drains rapidly. But once you fill it up to full, the bar flashes red and yellow, and drains slowly. All your attacks also do more damage while your combo gauge is flashing. Once the bar is drained, your combo is broken, along with the temporal increase in damage. There is a high-score table with the top scores on the 5 longest combos in the game. Like the power gauge, certain attacks would fill up the combo gauge more than others. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Time The time remaining is shown in the centre on top of the screen. If it counts down to 10, it will start flashing (like the combo gauge). When it reaches 0, you lose a life. Each count on the clock is 5 seconds in real time. Most of the time, you will probably not notice that you are "racing" against the time, much like the Metal Slug games also by SNK. Time will be added when you complete a segment. Segments are not screens, as there can be multiple segments in a screen itself. As a general rule of thumb, once the screen moves from a static "fixed point", you have finished a segment. Short of taking a nap or a lunch break, you probably won't take 5 minutes to actually complete a segment. If you died and continued, the time will reset to 60 counts if it is below 60 counts. If it's above 60, it'll continue counting from there. Also, at the end of the round, each count in the time gives you a 100-point bonus. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================================================================== [003] Normal attacks Normal attacks are the bread and butter of this game and knowing them well is paramount if you want to do well in this game. I would say that normal attacks make up 70% of the game. There are many types of normal attacks in this game and they can be classified into three main groups - Standing, running and jumping attacks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [003a] Standing attacks Under standing attacks, there are first, second, and third A or B attacks. I chose not to show a long table of all possible combos, which is pretty useless since you could, and should, improvise. You are able to combo 9 attacks in a B to A sequence illustrated by this chart below. None of the attacks may whiff (that is to miss completely) or you will not be able to continue the chain. +--------+ +--------+ |First B |-------------->|First A | +--------+ +--------+ | | | | +----------------------+ | | | | V V V +--------+ +--------+ |Second B|-------------->|Second A| +--------+ +--------+ | | | | +----------------------+ | | | | V V V +--------+ +--------+ |Last B |-------------->|Last A | +--------+ +--------+ You can only start the sequence at the First B or the First A, although you can stop at any point you wish. For example, (The standard chain) First B (x3), First A, Second B, Second A (x2), Last B, Last A. Input: B,B,B,A,B,A,A,B,A Note: To do the above combo correctly, you need to wait for a short while before pressing the 2nd Second A. If you tap too quickly, the game will tend to skip the 2nd Second A and go into a Last A. You are able to start the sequence from any part of the chain and continue downwards but you cannot chain backwards, like from a Second B to a First B. You can choose to forgo any part of the standard chain to get to the Last A or Last B earlier. An example would be First A, Second B, Last B, Last A Input: A,B,B,A An interesting point to note is that you can cancel the last of the first Bs into a throw, even on an airborne opponent, provided that they are not too far away. On ground opponents, however, as long as the last of the first Bs hit, you are able to cancel it into a throw. All of the above attacks, except the Last A, can be cancelled with specials, dashing or throwing a weapon. The Last A can only be cancelled with specials. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [003b] Running attacks Strictly speaking, there are only two running attacks when you disregard the body bash as a running attack. To do running attacks, you must first... run. In case you didn't know how to run, double tap either left or right and hold down on that direction which you ran to. Body bash The body bash is a short ranged bash that launches enemies. You are also not able to perform the body bash while running prolonged, you can only bash the enemy on the very first second or so in your running animation. The damage that it does is also downright pathetic. Yet, despite its utter uselessness against combating your enemies, it has a pretty much undiscovered use. As you might have known, there are destructible scenery in the game which can contain goodies. Instead of raining down powerful slashes to destroy them quickly, you can consider using body bashes on them. What's the rationale behind this? See the "topping the scoreboards" section below for that. Running B The running B works quite similarly to a body bash in that it also launches your enemies. However, it has a much better range. Simply put, it is a really useful move that you will be using quite a lot. Either to keep a launched enemy floating or to quickly interrupt a slow attack by an enemy, this attack is your best bet. But watch out, the running B attack has considerable lag if it misses and whiffed attacks cannot be cancelled for safety. Running A While it has two distinct advantages compared to the running B, specifically, it does more damage and has a longer range, it is still not as useful. This is because it is slower and does not launch the enemies it hits. Its only practical use I can think of is to end a combo when the enemy is hit too far outside the screen. It's is also liable to parries, especially due to the slower speed that it has - a disadvantage that the running B does not possess. Running attacks may only be cancelled into specials. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [003c] Airborne attacks There are only two airborne attacks, the Jumping A and the Jumping B. Unlike standing attacks, airborne attacks have a very simple cancelling system. Jumping As and cancel into Jumping Bs and vice versa. Knowing this, all air combos are either B,A,B,A,... or A,B,A,B.... Jumping B This attack is mostly used as an air-to-air. It is a very good attack for air-to-air encounters it this attack does not retract over time - that is, pressing B right at the start of the jump will keep the character's leg outstretched until he/she lands and virtually no timing is needed to counter an enemy's jumping attack (just press B as early as possible. This move is generally also used to start the air combo sequence as it is launched instantly. Jumping A Once you master the art of air combos, you will do this move rather frequently. Besides having a longer range, this attack also launches your enemies, making it an ideal choice when tackling a group of distanced enemies. Kagetsura's and Falcon's jumping A does two hits while the others do a single hit. You should keep in mind that Kagetsura's jumping A launches on the first hit while Falcon's launches on the second - you have to time your attack properly to ensure that your enemies are launched by this attack with the two aforementioned characters. Landing among and without launching your enemies will almost certainly require you to use a special or risk getting hit. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [003d] Strategies to utilising normal attacks After all that rather "un-useful" information, it's time for the real talk. Now that you (perhaps) know normal attacks inside out, you might think that doing the standard chain alone is enough. The answer is, unfortunately, no. The key to winning the game is to survive by keeping away and doing damage at the same time. One key point you should remember is that you can cancel any standing attack, with the exception of the last A, into a dash. Lets take for example a situation... You have a green swordsman in front of you and another green spearman far behind you. You run to the green swordsman and start pulling off the standard chain but you notice the spearman moving slowly to your back. Continuing in your combo will very likely cause you to lose some health. Thus, instead, you should cancel your combo into a dash and run away from the spearman. You could also run towards the spearman and try to interrupt him with a running B. This is a fundamental to surviving the stages. Infinite combos are part and parcel of this game and learning how to do them is rather important. Now keeping in mind that you can cancel a lot of standing attacks into a dash, you could keep an opponent afloat with standing attacks, and dash forward with a running B when he is getting a bit beyond reach and then continue attacking. Running Bs are key setups to infinite ground combos. As whiffed attacks cannot be cancelled, you need to be careful about the timing of your attacks. Once the enemy you are hammering away at is launched too high, wait for a brief moment before continuing your attacks. If you are cornered while comboing an enemy, you can consider cancelling your attacking into a throw, you are fully invincible during the throw until you recover from it, so you can use that to escape sticky situations as well. You should also know that normal attacks can hit multiple enemies who are standing close together. This means that a good situation would be one that all the enemies in the screen are bunched together in a tight pack. The best way to take out this group would be no doubt a well-timed jumping A. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [003e] Air combos Ok, now let us talk about that elusive air combo that quite a lot of people are unsure about. It is considered to be the most undiscovered part of the game and it is quite true as some players could finish the game once or twice and are yet clueless about its execution. Unlike the Marvel vs series, air combos in this game are not purely for flash or simply yet another way of doing damage. It is so useful, you can be guaranteed to lose a lot less life once you grasped its concepts. The one main setup to air combos is something that people are already familiar with, and that is the normal attack cancelling with a dash. Now, perhaps for the first time in a guide, clearly state the exact keys you can press to perform a simple air combo. (Standing close to an enemy) B, B, B, dash, running B, B, B, B, dash, C, B, A After this air combo, you can continue attacking after you land, as you should land before your enemy does. This air combo setup can also be used to escape that same scenario where the spearman is on your back poised to strike. The key advantage is, however, you do not need to give up on the enemy which you are attacking when you are at risk of getting hit. Instead, by executing this air combo, you will land yourself a comfortable distance away from your enemy while continuing to attack your original target. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [003f] Advanced strategies Damage dealing is considered pretty basic since they involve nothing but infinites, comboing or specials. These advanced strategy below provide nifty tricks to both survive and to do damage. - Absolutely never, ever do a running A. Running As are slow, can be parried, cannot be cancelled into anything outside of a special and recover slowly if missed. - Also, never start the sequence with a First A. They are slow and have a short range. The running B is a much better substitute. - Don't jump vertically, unless dealing with a two skulls at once. It's worse than standing still. - If your power gauge is running dry, you can do a quick running B and then body bash enemies as they fall. Retreat afterwards. This will charge a whole lot a gauge while doing minimum damage to enemies. - Consider using bombs as self-defence. They have a rather large effect area of effect upon explosion, so if you find yourself close to being surrounded, toss a bomb into one direction and run towards that same side. - There's no such thing as trading hits in the game, it's either you or them getting hit. Don't try to do so, enemies usually have a range advantage, that's where specials come along. - Since you'll recover life after a boss battle, a B, B, B, A, B, A, A, A, ABC will work fairly well when you do not have enough power to do a special. In fact, the long period of invincibility allows you to get up close on the boss and work in another combo, which you will be able to finish with a special due to all the hits you get in. - Consider trying the above combo after luring the boss to a food container. The combo will knockdown the boss and destroy the container, while the defensive escape lets you grab the food without interruption from the minions. Furthermore, the health restored will usually make up for the health lost from the ABC. - Weak enemies move less and procrastinate more. Work to destroy stronger enemies in a group. Enemies usually spawn 2 at a time, and no more than 4 can be onscreen at once. Letting 1 weak basic swordsman or spearman dance around while dealing with only 2 advanced enemies at once helps a lot. - Whenever you are going to lose life anyway, either from the skulls by the last boss or cannon ball wave by the frog ball, just press ABC as a panic key. The life loss will be minimal, and the 5 sec invincibility allows you to exact revenge. A prime example of this is when you are hit by the B special of Okuni. Pressing ABC before the special detonates lets you avoid any damage from it altogether. - Unless you're going for highscores, ignore all coins, golds or other point- giving items. Greed kills. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [003g] Topping the scoreboard If you are a first time player, forget this section completely. Once you have gotten yourself accustomed with the controls of the game and are decently capable that you could survive China stage without continuing, you can consider beating the high scores. There are two high scores in this game, the first is the standard high score table you will see in almost every other game, the second one is the combo high scores. Action Points ------------- ------ First B ________ 100 First A ________ 200 Second B _______ 200 Second A _______ 300 2nd Second A ___ 500 Last B _________ 400 Last A _________ 500 Throw __________ 500 Throw collide __ 100 (targets hit by the thrown enemy) Body bash ______ 200 Running B ______ 300 Running A ______ 500 Jumping B ______ 400 Jumping A ______ 600 DM _____________ 100 (full-screen attack) Shuriken _______ 500 Plate __________ 600 Bomb impact ____ 500 Bomb AOE _______ 300 Kunai __________ 500 From the chart above, you should see that throws are one of the ways to get high scores. In fact, in the China stage at level 3, I could get 230000 by throwing everybody I saw and playing normally only gave me about 180000. However, this will take a lot of time and patience and experience. If you are not careful, it could cost you a lot of credits as well. But instead of throwing everybody you see, you can also try to do simple ground infinites (like B,B,B, running B) to try to get a large combo. Since combos factor into your score when you defeat a boss at the end of a stage, this can actually be killing two birds with one stone. There isn't really a fixed point chart for destructible scenery like tables and chairs, but the more powerful of an attack you use to do the last blow on the destructible object, the more points you will get from it. If you think that throwing everybody you see or trying to make a 200 hit combo is way too hard, you might want to try this. Boss fights are such that they are endless until the boss is killed. With that in mind, you can try to squeeze every little bit of points out of a stage is by defeating normal enemies during a boss fight. Unless you are extremely skilled (and rich, for that matter), you most probably wouldn't go very far with this strategy. During the boss fight, hit only the minions that spawn and do not damage the boss. You can continue infinitely during the boss fight and kill as many minions as you please, and the score will endlessly rise. On my very best attempt, I got 50000 points on a single credit on the China Stage boss, so 100 credits might get you 5 millions points - that's more than you can get throughout the entire game but that would cost you too much effort to make it worthwhile. If trying to get a highscore is not your thing, you can instead try to get the highest combo. As stated above, the key to getting a high combo is to do a B,B,B running B infinite on everybody you see. Once you get your combo gauge flashing by doing some longer variations of the standard chain, do the infinite on everybody you encounter. Obviously, it is better to attempt such a feat in a single play game rather than a two player game. Unless the other player cooperates, this will be difficult, since the number of enemies that spawn do not increase and the other player might restrict your screen space. You will need to have a keen knowledge on the exact locations on where the enemies in an area will spawn so that you would not have too much pause in between hitting enemies, which would cause your combo to break. Another point to note that if you couldn't find an enemy to hit somehow, doing body bashes on destructible scenery will help a lot, as it fills up the combo gauge considerably, while enemies in the screen spawn for you to rack up the combo. Once you clear every single enemy in your screen, you should again turn your attention to the chairs and tables that you could bash to get in as many combo hits as possible. The hardest part when trying to get a large combo as once you bashed the last you could on that table, you need to rush to find the closest possible enemy and hit him. This is where many people would mess up. The easiest place where you can pull off up to a 300+ hit combo is at the China stage right at the beginning, that place has 3 sections, each with quite a lot of tables and chairs and simple enemies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================================================================== [004] Thrown weapons Thrown weapons are not very important in the game, considering that they are somewhat uncommon. You should save them to deal with difficult opponents later in the game as they deal decent damage and, with the exception of bombs, have a long range. You also score points by collecting a single type of weapon in excess - that means, if you already have nine of a type of weapon and you collect more, you will get bonus points. Shurikens and kunais award you 1000 points and bombs award you 2000 points. Since there are only 9 plates in the game, you can't score a bonus for that. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shurikens By far the most common weapon in the game, you start with 3 of them. They cause enemies struck by them to go into a launched state (working very much like a running B), allowing you to combo afterwards. You can even throw multiple shurikens and they will all connect, provided you do not launch them too high. Shurikens are rather poor at damaging multiple enemies unless they are standing very close together. They deal above average damage and charge your power gauge by a large amount. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bombs Bombs are often underestimated and unliked for being "unspammable" - meaning that you can't throw multiple bombs in quick succession to deal big damage. This is because bombs cause a target to go into a freefall state. They deal about the same damage as shurikens but the explosion caused by a bomb stays in the screen for a while and has the potential to damage multiple enemies much better than shurikens. Their true power lies in its ability to deal extreme damage to enemies that cannot be tripped - the Evil Door Boss being a very good example. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kunais These cool-looking throwing daggers are easily the most popular weapon in the game. Kunais do not do as much damage as bombs or shurikens, but it makes up for being able to damage all enemies in a straight line by passing through each target like a .50 BMG. They are also very useful for dealing big damage to bosses, since a kunai is able to stun the target long enough for another kunai to combo. Kunais will not cause an enemy to go into either a launched or freefall state. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Plates Not only are plates unorthodox, they are also the rarest weapons in the game (Only 9 of them exist in the whole game). They travel and damage in a very similar way as shurikens but are not as powerful. In fact, they do as much damage as 1st Bs, which is really pathetic. Plates do not trip their targets. You might be thinking, so what the hell are plates used for? The only practical way of utilising plates will most likely be using them in a "plate trap". Since launched bosses block normals, extended combos must not launch them. In a plate trap, you will corner the boss and do the first 7 sequences b,b,b,a,b,a,a and then throw a plate. The plate will stun the boss long enough for you to connect another 1st B and continue the chain, resulting in a semi-infinite which can last until you run out of plates. The only boss where you can perform the plate trap on is the Fire Samurai in China. You might think that it works on the Lightning Samurai as well, but trust me, I've tried - it does not work. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================================================================== [005] Specials / Characters ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- General information about specials All specials, except throw specials, can be cancelled into from any normal ground attack - even last A. Specials can also be done when your character is in a damage-stun state and this is used to escape extended combos from advanced enemies and bosses. You cannot cancel whiffed normal attacks into specials. Down Down + A specials (hereby called A specials) are usually combo specials, they are quick in execution and are usually able to hit launched enemies fairly well. Down Down + B specials (hereby called B specials) are usually defensive specials. They generally are slower in execution but have a larger hit-area. They also tend to last long, giving you much needed invincibility time. Throw specials, accessible to only Kagetsura and Kongoh, are executed by holding onto an enemy and entering Down Up + B. They are somewhat like the A+B+C defensive escape move. The primary target of a throw special will receive major damage while surrounding enemies will be hit for much less. Defensive escape specials are done by pressing A+B+C at the same time. Upon execution, your character will take minor damage and leave the screen immediately, leaving behind a small explosion. After which your character will reappear in the screen and have about 5 seconds of invincibility. This is particularly important to characters like Byakki and Okuni, as their specials can only hit forwards. This can also be used in situations where you are drained of power to defensively perform A or B specials. It is also extremely useful for picking up food objects when there are many enemies in the way. Desperation moves (DMs) are the same with all characters, albeit with different animation. They drain one whole bar of power and during its execution, all enemies (and your ally) are not able to move, allowing it to interrupt almost every move in the game, with the exception of the last boss's healing move and your ally's desperation move. The damage is pretty pitiful considering how much power it takes. DMs will not be discussed in individual character specials as they have no tactical differences. The names in inverted commas "" beside the Specials are the official names for those moves, retrieved from the official Sengoku 3 manual. Many of the words in the manual were too small to be discernable (or in simpler terms, too freaking blur) and I only added those I could confirm. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [005a] Kagetsura This is what you get when you mix lightning with a sword-wielding ninja. He's your average character with average speed and damage. Nothing exceptional about this character, no ground-breaking specials or normal moves. His normal throw distance is fairly short and doesn't have much potential to knock down a lot of enemies. His weapon throw speed is insane though. I can see why he and Byakki are brothers. Although Kagetsura's skills are mostly lack range, they are rather quick in execution. The official name for his DM is "Flying Serpent Shock" Speed: B Reach: A Damage: B Specials: B Gauge charge: B Specials A special "Slicing Beads of Destruction" Kagetsura quickly charges his blade with lightning and slashes forwards, charging up his foes with a nice current of electricity. It is reasonably, but not very fast. It is very poor for defensive purposes as it lasts a very short time and only hits in one direction. B special "Lightning Flash Attack" Kagetsura draws his blade and charges head first forwards while sheathed in blue energy, electrocuting foes. This move is very fast and has almost no startup time. It also covers a fairly large area forwards. It does three hits, with the last hit doing the brunt of the damage. It does not make up as a combo special because it hits launched enemies only once for pitiful damage. As this special covers decent ground, you can safely use it on a group of enemies from a good distance. Throw special "Strike Drop" Kagetsura grabs his foe and carries him/her flying up and out of the screen, landing with a small bomb-like explosion. Generally used only on bosses; not too useful. Sure its fun to move around in the air to try to land your victim in a crowd of enemies but it does not fill in combos or as defense well. Only use it for flash or if you simply must expand gauge. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [005b] Falcon Falcon is the master of anti-air combat. His last A has a really high hit area and is very good for dealing with spearmen and swordsmen jump attacks, as well as the diving attack of vultures. His jumping A can hit airborne enemies very well, generally making it a bad idea to jump at this guy. Falcon's specials are also excellent for combos or defense. However, he falls short several other areas. His air combo does poor damage and his reach is occasionally lacking. He is also crippled with a slow weapon throwing speed. Speed: B Reach: B Damage: B Specials: A Gauge charge: B Specials A special "Devouring Flame" Upon execution, Falcon dashes forward. On contact with an enemy, he does a running A and then a last A which sets his enemies ablaze. After about 1/3 of the screen width, Falcon will stop dashing, and the special will be aborted. Certain bosses with prolonged invincible moves, like the lightning samurai's attacks, are able to fully avoid the whole dashing animation(which lasts for less than a second), wasting your power. Another weakness of this special is that if it does not hit all your enemies, you will be left in a vulnerable position, stuck in the long recovery time of this move. B special "Flight of the Phoenix" True to Falcon's namesake, he creates a flaming phoenix out of his powers and releases it forwards. The phoenix charges straight and setting ablaze all enemies along its path at an amazing speed. Take note, While creating the flaming phoenix, the sprouted wings can actually hit. It can even hit enemies a fair distance behind Falcon, making it an excellent defensive special. The wings of the phoenix, upon conjuration, do slightly more damage compared to the launched phoenix. While this special is similar to Kurenai's B special, Kurenai's phases to 4 directions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [005c] Kurenai Kurenai is the choice if you prefer fast slashing and kicking. Sister of Okuni, Kurenai is the fastest character available. Her jump A is extremely fast and is coupled with above average damage, giving her the ability to finish off enemies in record-breaking time. Being a female character, she is unable to do "Throw specials" like Kagetsura and Kongoh. Unlike other characters, Kurenai's agility allows her to do a 5 to 7-hit air combo, although it takes a bit of practice to pull that off consistently. Speed: A Reach: C Damage: A Specials: B Gauge charge: B Specials A special "Kurenai's Slicing Blade" Kurenai spins forward with 4 hits, which ends with a flaming slice. Enemies hit by the last hit will be engulfed in flames and thrown back for a short distance. This special is rather useless for anything outside of ground-only combos as it does occasionally launch enemies too high for the last (the most damaging) blow to connect. Also, the B special covers a considerably larger area, works in launched combos well and has very long invincibility; making the existence of the A special very questionable indeed. Needless to say, this is not often used by players. B special "Doppelganger Divider" Kurenai splits into 4 images and phases towards the left, right and diagonally towards both directions. The area covered is the whole stretch that Kurenai's images streak past. As with her A special, enemies under attacks are engulfed in flames and thrown back for a short distance. The ability for the B special to hit both forwards and backwards makes it a much better choice than her other special. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [005d] Kongoh According to the stereotypes about ninjas, they usually do not wield large heavy poles, but that's besides the point. Kongoh is the powerhouse of the game with the biggest damage per strike, enemies bludgeoned by his massive pole generally do not survive. He trades speed for damage and reach, however, and is therefore a little slow on his footwork. His reach generally comes from his really long and thick pole. He also has the ability to grab an enemy and walk around the screen at the same time. Upon pressing A or B, he single-handedly throws his victim away screen width. While it may seem cool at first, you will soon find it a hindrance as you cannot dash to cancel your grab and it takes a long time for Kongoh to release a enemy he got hold of. Throws, however, are not the essence of this game. The most important things are normal attacks. Kongoh, with long ranged and damaging attacks, is best suited for calm and controlled play to keep enemies at bay. General Discussion Speed: C Reach: A Damage: A Specials: B Gauge charge: C Specials A special "Kongoh Driver" Kongoh shoves his heavy pole forwards. If it touches an enemy, he picks him/her up with the pole's end and slams them hard on the floor. Effectively like any other A special but in essence, is a throw special as only a single primary target will receive the full force of the special. It does not choose the best target for you, so in a situation when the boss and its minions are standing close together, you might accidentally pick up one of the latter, wasting considerable gauge. B special "Whirling Club of Flames" With great force, Kongoh holds back his pole (which can hit enemies behind him),charges it (which gives it a red hue) and flings it outwards. The pole then spins in place a few metres in front of Kongoh for a few moments before returning to him, very much like a boomerang. When thrown at a large group, this special can really pump up the numbers on the combo meter. A good special that his both forwards and backwards and lasts for a decent amount of time. Throw special "Satanic Stallion Slam" Kongoh spins with his victim upwards all the way out of the screen and subsequently pile-drives them into the ground. Similar in many aspects to Kagetsura's throw special, including the ability to move around your character (with your victim) while in mid-air. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [005e] Okuni Okuni is perhaps the weirdest character in the game in my opinion - look at her jumping B and you will get what I mean. She uses a fan in her attacks. She is fast, but not as fast as Kurenai when it comes to air combos and occasionally her reach is lacking. She is Kurenai's elder sister. Speed: A Reach: B Damage: B Specials: B Gauge charge: A Specials A special "Fan Fandango" Okuni swings her fan upwards and the smashes it down, giving some foes a shocking. Similar in many ways to Kagetsura's A special. B special "Hurricane Habanera" Okuni flips her fan sideways forwards and ring of energy blasts out. The ring of energy moves across the screen very quickly until it comes into contact with an enemy and stops. Shortly after, it "detonates" in a small radius and slices up whoever unlucky enough to be in nearby. This special is so fast it can actually be used to combo from attacks. However, it is not able to hit many enemies at once due to the fact that it detonate when it collides with an enemy. Strangely, it will not detonate if it touches frogs or dogs; instead deal minor damage to them. While it might seem like a disadvantage at first, you can actually use this special to bypass the boss's frog minions who are standing in your way and directly damage the boss. The ring will pass through the frogs, raise your combo gauge, and then hit the boss for big damage. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [005f] Byakki While Kagetsura incoporates lightning in his attacks, Byakki prefers to summon other-worldly demons do the dirty job. His damage solely on ground is on par with Kurenai's formidable 5 hit air combo - without even tagging on an additional special. Not only does his attacks and specials do high damage, they also have a decent range. One exceptional attack worthly of mention is his last A attack where he throws his circular blade straight out and it returns to him in a boomerang-like fashion. This attack cannot be parried and amazing range. Furthermore, it can also hit enemies on the way back. It also has great damage to boot. Speed: B Reach: A Damage: A Specials: B Gauge charge: A Specials A special "Summoning of the Evil Talon" As mentioned above, Byakki specialty lies in the utilisation of monsters. In this special of his, he summons a demonic hand, in the form of an eagle's talons, in front of him, out from the ground, to attack the enemies and launch them back for a middle range distance. Unlike all other specials in the game, this special does not cause his victims to go into a freefall state, allowing you to combo afterwards. In fact, you can repeatedly juggle a cornered boss with this special as Byakki recovers instantly after the hand disappears. B special "Summoning of the Evil Shadow" Also posing his signature "two fingers" gesture, a demon appears in front of Byakki and viciously impales foes with its claws. This special has a much bigger hit area than the hand special but is also fast enough to be used in combos. However, enemies standing very close to Byakki as well as enemies behind him are able to fully avoid this move. Also, since Byakki is stationary during this move, he can also put himself into a bad situation if several enemies gather behind him. In the case when you are surrounded, it is better to do a defensive escape rather than this or his other special. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================================================================== [006] Enemies In order of frustration, this is based solely on my opinion 1. Blue vulture 2. Hellhound 3. Purple ninja girl 4. Green samurai 5. Red vulture 6. Brown spearman 7. Old man with bats 8. Frog 9. Face 10. Monster 11. Orange ninja girl 12. Yellow samurai 13. Blue swordsman 14. Houndsmaster 15. Green spearman 16. Green swordsman 17. Blue skull / yellow skull ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [006a] Common strategies The Up/Down trick Since most basic enemies are only able to hit you while you are in the same horizontal plane, standing above or below them would greatly reduce the change of you getting hit. Do not move into the enemy's plane, let them enter yours so you have a split-second advantage. Bunching enemies together Enemies have a common thing - they will try to get close to you. With that in mind, you could move around the screen a bit in an attempt to get all enemies to bunch up, so that they can be taken out much more easily. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [006b] Enemy-specific strategies Swordsmen Basic: Green Advanced: Blue They are the most common and the easiest to defeat. The basic swordsman really procrastinates before attacking - it could stand in front of you for two seconds before swinging his blade. You shouldn't really lose health fighting them. The advanced form, which is slightly blue, attacks immediately when you are in range. Occasionally it also does a medium-ranged jumping attack, do your own jumping attack to counter that. They are completely helpless at long range, so jumping attacks will defeat them easily. They do not have defensive recoveries, so you can happily stand beside them and throw out first Bs, while they are on the floor, and combo afterwards. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Spearmen Basic: Green Advanced: Brown Being slightly less common then swordsmen, they are a greater threat. This is because their attacks have a very long range and are often quite damaging. While the basic version can be dealt with like the basic swordsman, the advanced form would be a big problem to new players. The advanced form has to be dealt with either the Up/Down trick stated above, or with a running jump in. If there are more than 1 of these enemies, it is quite imperative that you bunch them together, as their long range can cover each other effectively - that is, while you are comboing away at one of them, another spearman could sneak behind you and take the liberty of removing 30% health from you. The brown spearman can occasionally pull off a jumping attack which also has a very long range. As with swordsmen, they do not have defensive recoveries, so no worries about standing next to them while they stand up. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Samurai Basic: Yellow Advanced: Green Samurais have more vitality than either the swordsman or the spearman, but are even less common. The samurai is the only humanoid enemy that does not jump no matter what. His normal attacks are nothing to write home about, but his one trademark move that new players would hate is for is his running stab attack. (Reminds me of a similar and equally annoying move by Amano Hyo of the Last Blade) In that attack, he holds his sword with the hilt at his gut, reaching horizontally outwards. After jogging on the spot for a brief moment (that's the startup animation), he would run towards his target. He could even run diagonally, although there is a maximum angle in which he can run. So you are safe if you use the Up/Down trick. You can also jump over his running attack, but you have to be careful as that attack can hit quite high, and could get you in mid-air. As for the advanced form of the samurai, he has more health and has a three- hit combo attack. You should perform a special to avoid getting hit by all of the three hits. Advanced samurais tend to do defensive recoveries more often as well. Besides those, there isn't much difference between the basic and the advanced samurai. They do possess a defensive recovery, so I'd stay away if they get up after being knocked down. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ninja girls Basic: Orange Advanced: Purple These scantily-clad (well not really), assailants that you will meet quite often are nothing short of annoying. They do like to jump all over the screen but are fortunately not able to attack while doing so. Due to their jumping behaviour, they are difficult to bunch together. Their basic standing attacks also have a fairly large hitbox, and could hit jumpers rather easily. But the single attack that makes them a great irritant is their defensive recovery - a large sweeping swipe upwards. This attack is instant, like all others, but has an extreme range reaching out 2/5ths of the screen. The advanced form is even worse, as they could do their defensive recoveries even while standing. The best way to deal with them, without a doubt, is to use air combos. Since they like to jump around, they could jump into your air combo and then you could combo them to death. But if you can't do air combos, then you have to play very carefully and use specials to kill them quickly - your life would be a whole lot easier. As previously mentioned, they have a defensive recovery, so stay far away. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frog Frogs are one of the few enemies that do not have an advanced form. They are also rather small, and you are not able to hit them on the floor with first Bs. They have 3 attacks, the tongue attack, the spit attack and its "explosion" attack. The tongue attack is mainly its anti-air air move, so if you jumped into a group of frogs you would see a lot of tongues sticking out. They have a very low profile, making it difficult to hit them with aerial attacks. They will also use their tongues to attack you on the ground as a standard short-ranged strike. The second attack is its acid spit. Frogs will execute this attack rather frequently, especially if you are close to them but not jumping. The bubbly spit (or maybe gastric juice) is pink in colour and can hit you two times for decent damage. The spit will naturally disappear after a short while. The last attack is its defensive recovery. The frog will close its eyes and and forcefully "puffs" out some sort of gas out from its skin on its rear. This attack is quite painful and needless to say it is invulnerable during its execution. Knowing those, the best strategy to deal with frogs is to hit them with a running B and combo afterwards. They do not have much health and can be disposed of quickly with a short and powerful combo. Frogs have lot health, and die quickly to bombs or kunais, making them a good tool if you are facing difficulties. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Old man with bats I know that this is a very bad name, but I can't think of better ones. One of the few rare enemies, only 4 of these men exist in the game to my knowledge. One strange is, that they do not make slashing sounds when they hit you despite carrying two daggers. They are also the only normal enemy who possess a defensive escape. They have two attacks. The first attack is when it holds out both of its arms and a large group of bats appear from apparently inside its sleeves. The bats then move themselves across the screen, covering a reasonably wide area - some bats even move diagonally. The bats, however, do not traverse the entire screen and some eventually dissipates after travelling a short distance. Although this attack does pathetic damage, but the man does use it very frequently. The other attack is where it charges straight at you with arms outstretched, with the same animation as the bats releasing. This attack is very fast and is very likely to hit you. It only does this if you are standing near him in the same horizontal plane. It moves around rather quickly and it is difficult to use the Up/Down trick on him. If you did 10 attacks on him in a combo, you will find that you will suddenly be unable to attack him further. He will suddenly be surrounded and literally "carried away" by his bats and then reappear in another place. While reappearing, however, it cannot execute his defensive recovery. So two long combos will finish it off. Occasionally, it also jumps and makes an attack with an awkward range... but that is nothing to worry about. All in all, the best way to tackle it is with a jump in. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monster Monsters are weird enemies first seen in the Brazil stage, about at the same time which you would first see frogs. They have purple skin and wears blue rags. They have a standard close range melee attack and an annoying attack that, quite literally, uses their heads. In the latter attack, the devil would dislodge its head from its body, and it will start to fly straight horizontally towards the direction it is facing. That freaky attack will only be executed when you are standing directly at the devil's horizontal plane. Unlike the old man with bats, the head of the monster travels very quickly and has an infinite range. With that in mind, it is best to approach him with the Up/Down trick, even though the monster does move around a lot like the old man with bats. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Face (or rather faces) The last of the monstrosities you'll be accustomed with in the Brazil stage, this monster is by far the ugliest freak you'll see in the game. You had better get your combos working well by the time you meet this thing, as it has a boss-like behaviour of punishing a broken combo. The "face" breaks a lot of conventions set out by the rest of the enemies that you'll face (no pun intended) in the game. Firstly, the "face" is always "flying". That means you can't grab it even if you walked towards it. Yet despite that, standing attacks wouldn't launch it normally. Secondly, the defensive recovery of the "face" is rather slow and does not hit instantly. Lastly, the best way to engage the "face" it is to charge at it straight on, unlike the rest of the enemies in Sengoku 3. Apart from the annoying laughter that the "face" makes, it has 3 attacks. The first attack is telegraphed. It starts off with the "face" spinning in place and then it charges forwards. The face is vulnerable during the whole attack and it is best to strike while it is spinning. The second attack is also rather telegraphed, not to mention rather easy to avoid. In this attack the "face" gets all fired up in a blue flame and shoots out 2 medium-speed fireballs. Strangely, the fireballs cannot hit you if you stand on the exact same horizontal plane as the "face". They could only hit if you stood a bit above or below that horizontal plane. Without a doubt, you have all the time in the world to strike the "face" while it executes this strange attack. The last attack is its defensive recovery. This attacks works in pretty much the same way as the first charging attack, but the "face" is completely invulnerable throughout it. It starts of with the face getting all fired up again, but this time with a red flame. Simply walk up or down to avoid this attack. Be careful, if you broke a combo, the "face" will pull of this attack. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vultures Basic: Red Advanced: Blue Thankfully, you will not encounter this pain in the rear until the USA stage. These bothersome birds possess 3 rather effective attacks. The first attack is in which is spins vertically upwards, which I like to call its Shinryuken. This attack is its defensive recovery but does not have much horizontal range, much like the actual Shinryuken. The second attack has the vulture spinning on the floor, while moving a bit backwards. (Apparently the vultures love spinning). This attack gives the vulture a pretty low profile and many jump ins could miss, resulting you in losing life. There really isn't a real counter to this move, besides watching your jumps. The last attack, perhaps the most annoying one, is the one in which the vulture flies 2 feet up and then dives straight at you. They like to back out of the screen before pulling off this attack, which make it unpredictable. The best counter to jumping attacks is generally your own jumping attacks. But when multiple vultures dive it you at different directions, then will you have a problem. Pull out a special in that case. The advanced form of the vulture can do a three hit combo. It simply loves to do the diving attack at every opportunity although the three hit combo is a rather rare occurrence. You shouldn't charge at the vultures, the key way to kill them is to punish them after any of their attacks or try to nail then during their diving attack. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hellhounds They are usually found with the tall houndsmasters. Hellhounds look just like your usual black dogs. These are fast enemies which you should always use punches to deal with, as they are quick enough to interrupt your slashes. They only have 1 attack and that's the charging attack. After attacking, whether they hit or not, they will end up on the other side of you. Thus, multiple hellhounds charging at you could be a serious problem and you can lose a lot of life if you panic. You can easily deal with them by having them line up in a straight line and then throw punches like crazy. Once you hit them with the last B perform a last A and they should be dead - their vitality is rather low. If for some reason the dogs do swarm you, pull off a DM. Like frogs, kunais and bombs also work exceptionally well against them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Houndsmaster Houndsmasters carry two large axes can throw them like Byakki. They are usually seen with hellhounds. Despite being an "advanced" enemy, the houndsmaster does not have a defensive recovery. None of their attacks are any special for concern - besides the axe throwing attack. While that attack could stop you from charging or doing jump ins on him, he is a complete victim to the Up/Down trick. Absolutely pathetic despite the high vitality it possesses. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Skulls Basic: Blue Advanced: Yellow Boss-only: Red Skulls shouldn't really be considered as an enemy as you do not need to defeat them to advance through the stages. A mere annoyance at most. Blue skulls are slow and move horizontally. They can be easily destroyed by a well-timed vertical jump B - even if they come in both directions. Yellow skulls are slow but they accelerate and move raise in height as they move across the screen, making it impossible to jump over them. Red skulls are the minions that are summoned by the last boss during his full screen attack. They are indestructible and move horizontally, like blue skulls. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================================================================== [007] Walkthrough ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- General hints !) Safety first 1) Only destroy chairs and tables if you need some food. 2) Don't take an item when an enemy is standing near it. Remember, safety is of the upmost importance. 3) Avoid the corners of the screen at all costs; it is easy to get attacked by an out-of-screen attack if you stand near them. 4) If you really need to get a food item which is surrounded by enemies, use the defensive escape (A+B+C). 5) There can only be a maximum of 4 enemies on screen at once, you can take advantage of this in some ways. General hints for a two-player game 1) Both characters cannot hit the same enemy at the same time, so attack different enemies. 2) Try to combo towards the same direction, this way, there will be more screen space for long combos. 3) Try to watch out for each other, pulling off a DM to save your friend can be very helpful. 4) Using a special to cover your buddy while he picks up much needed food is also a nice move. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================================================================== [007a] China At the start of this stage, you will see a few basic swordsmen, a table with some steamed buns and a chair. Refrain from destroying the table, as once its destroyed, the buns that were once on top on it will be destroyed as well. Rush at the basic swordsman and combo away, but keep safety as your first priority. If you want, you can also use your shurikens to deal with them, although I recommend that you save them for the yellow samurai that you will encounter later. Once no more enemies spawn, you can get the buns if you need some healing, or save it for your friend if he needs healing instead. Wreck the chair to get 3 more shurikens. When you are done, proceed along with the flashing go arrow in the screen and You will encounter more basic swordsman, deal with them as with before and destroy the bicycles later to find a sandwich and some plates. When you proceed further, you should see a yellow samurai and two basic spearmen. If you have problems dealing with the yellow samurai, you can throw your shurikens. Do not throw your plates, for they are far too precious. Either way, when its done, you should destroy the motorbike to get a pizza. You should stand a bit to the left of the motorbike and start slashing. If you stood too far to the right, you would be taken to the next area without the chance to take the pizza. You should remember this kind of scripted event that will trigger depending on the position of the screen which you are standing at. At the next screen, you will see two spears on the far end of the screen. Unfortunately, you can't pick them up. They spears are in fact the exact spots in which basic spearman will spawn. Dispose of them quickly. More spearmen will show up, dispose of them in the same way. In the middle of this area or so, there is a stone table and a stone stool. The stool contains a bomb while the table contains more plates. When you finish off the swordsmen, you should walk up to the area with the stone furniture, as yellow samurai will be next. Try to line them up by keeping a good distance horizontally away and keeping still. Soon they will bunch together and charge at you, tackle them with a jumping A and combo away. A stone stool containing a gold coin is further in the right. More yellow samurai will appear, run to your left and left them charge at you in a single file, defeat them using a jumping A as well. In the next area, there is a bench which contains Onigiri (rice balls). To the right of this room, there will be two large exhibits displaying items like in a museum. Destroying those will give you a crystal ball worth 2000 points and a jade vase worth 1000 points. Two spearmen will appear immediately - get rid of them quickly. Swordsmen will appear soon afterwards after defeating them. There will also be skulls appearing once only two enemies remain in the screen, you can either dodge them or kill them. The next room that you enter has a potted plant, destroying it will reveal more steamed buns, if you need it. But if you don't, then leave it until the boss damages you enough and then destroy the potted plant for the food. On higher difficulty levels, you could find yellow samurais and basic spearman spawning in this area before the boss fight, on lower difficulty levels, there will be no enemies at all. Once you move pass that potted plant, the boss fight will start. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here are some tactics you should know when fighting any boss 1) Don't stand on the same horizontal plane as the boss 2) Don't stand next to boss when he/she recovers (due to defensive recovery) 3) Don't launch the boss, unless for self-defense 4) If you hit a boss when it is airborne, it will block. 5) A boss will attempt its most powerful move if it lands from a blocked attack The Fire Boss As this is the first boss that new players will see, he is rather easy. If this is the first time you play against him, use the Up/Down trick on him. Jumping at him isn't really a great idea, so don't do it. Try your best to isolate the boss from his minions, or bunch the boss with his minions, then combo away. Once you launch him with an attack, stop attacking and use a special, as you can't hit him while he is airborne. If you do hit him while he is airborne, he will block that attack (assuming that it was not a special), and upon landing, he will do his most dangerous attack - the hopping fire explosions. The hopping fire explosions can occur if he blocks an attack or if he is standing a long distance away from you. In this attack, fire blazes around his body and he jumps a total of 3 times, each higher than the previous, and attempts to smash you while landing. While he is on his apex from the jump, he will actually track your position but he is not able to change the direction in which he goes to after this initial tracking. To put it simply, move sidesways, preferably by sprinting, to avoid the attack. If for some reason you cannot avoid that attack, perform a DM, that's down, up, A+B by the way. Besides these, there is another strategy, which is rather cheap if I may add, to defeat the boss. The strategy is what I like to call the plate trap. Corner the boss on the right end of the screen and then perform the standard chain. Stop when you reach the 2nd second A and then throw a plate. Start the standard chain again after that. You can do this for a total of 4 times, although just 3 is needed to finish the boss. Once you have defeated him, check your current health. If it is full (or near full), go to the Italy stage. If it is half or so, then go to the Japan stage. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================================================================== [007b] Italy After that long cutscene, engage the basic swordsmen. There are two chairs and a table here. The chairs contain bombs while the table has pizza on it. As usual, do not destroy the table until you took the pizza that is on it. More basic spearmen and swordsmen will show up, defeat them as using the best way you used during the China stage. Eventually no more enemies will jump in your screen and a go arrow prompts you to go to your left. When that happens, grab the pizza if you need it and destroy the table and chairs and grab everything. For some reason if you do not need the pizza, then don't take it and don't destroy the table. Now stand below the table (if it isn't destroyed) or stand at where the table was (if it is destroyed) and move slowly towards your left. Once you see yellow samurais spawning on the bridge, run to your right until you reach the right screen border. The samurais should stand together and charge at you, throw your bombs at them. Once they're dead, process across the bridge. On this screen, there are two wooden barrels. The one on the right contains a silver coin (100 points) and the one of the left has a jade vase on it. To grab the jade vase, simply jump on top of the wooden barrel. A go arrow tell you to move left, do so slowly and run to your right as you did the last time, and they will gather. Two swordsmen and a yellow samurai should be not be a big problem. The same go arrow tells you to move left again, but now there are two basic spearmen and a yellow samurai. Use your specials here if you have to, or take cover by getting them stuck at the wooden barrels and dispose of them appropriately. Further to your left, there will be yet another two basic swordsmen and a yellow samurai use the same "running and gathering" tactic as you did before and they should be no problem. After you defeat them, on higher difficulty levels, there can be up to 3 female ninjas spawning at the same places, you can still stick to running and try to get them to bunch up, but you have to be careful. Whatever the case, process to the alley that the go arrow is pointing at. Once again you will see two wooden barrels as you enter this area. Do not destroy them, however, as you will be far too busy dealing with the female ninjas to take items from them. The left one contains a 2000-point crystal ball and the right one has 3 shurikens. Move a bit further to your right and 4 female ninjas will jump down (probably from the roof) in at four locations, effectively surrounding you. Run around the area while jumping and throwing out random jump attacks. Once they are standing together somehow, use specials to finish them off. Two more female ninjas will jump down after you finished them off. Female ninjas do drop kunais and it will help a lot to stock up 9 of them. When the coast is clear, you can by all means grab the things in the barrels. Walk to the bottom of the screen and sprint to your right, by doing this, you should be able to dodge the two yellow samurais. Two more female ninjas will jump down while you busy with the two yellow samurais - utilise the screen space as much as you can and use specials if you have to. The last wooden barrel on your right reveals a 700-point scroll-like object. Finally, its the last area of the Italy stage. Before you go wild and start charging across the screen, you might want to get the goodies that are in store for you in those mailboxes. The one on the left has 5000-point gold bars (wow, I didn't know people put those in mailboxes) and the one on the right has steamed buns that you should be familiar with from the China stage. Once you have grabbed them, move slowly to your right until two female ninjas run into the screen. Now try to move to either to top of the bottom left of the screen to prevent more female ninjas from coming into the screen. Don't move out too far from either corner, unless you feel like dealing with four female ninjas in a very small screen. Once the two are down, move to your right and four female ninjas will drop down from the ceiling in the same way as before, but now you have more screen space to move around - so it should not be that much of a problem. When no further enemies spawn, proceed to the boss fight. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okuni Introduction: Okuni: What ho! It's been a while, eh? (I have no idea why "ho" appear in the dialogue, but don't imagine stuff) Kagetsura/Falcon/Kongoh: Mistress Okuni. Kurenai: Sister! Okuni: Along with Byakki, how long have I waited for this moment...? Okuni: You're a lucky person to embark on your journey to Hades with my special dance, Okuni: rumored to be the best in the land. Now here you shall die! Defeated: Okuni: I am defeated... Kagetsura/Falcon/Kongoh: Fight with us, Mistress Okuni. Kurenai: Fight with us, Sister! Okuni: N,no! This cannot be. I cannot betray Byakki! (turns and runs away) Mistress Okuni also has the same habit as Byakki, that is, you cannot break your chain combos, or she will counterattack. She is much faster than Byakki though and she is also lucky to have very annoying female ninjas as her minions, making this fight particularly tricky. The best combo you can do will involve kunais, which are freely available in the as there are so many female ninjas. So after a few attacks, throw all your kunais but do not throw them when Okuni is outside of the screen and instead do a long range special to finish the combo. Her female ninjas like to jump to your back and put you in a bad situation. In that case use a special to bail yourself out - even if you are in the midst of a combo on Okuni. The best thing you can attempt is to line Okuni up with her female ninjas and then spam your kunais. This will be three-fold. First, it will get rid of her minions temporarily by killing them. Second, it will charge your power gauge considerably. Finally and most importantly, it will cause substantial damage to the boss - even more so if you end the kunai frenzy with a special. The lack of screen space to run about is one thing that makes this harder than either Byakki or the Fire Samurai. The same strategies apply, only that you have to be twice as careful. Either way, once you win, you should be taken to either the Japan stage or the Brazil stage without you having to select either one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================================================================== [007c] Japan At the start, while you jump off from that rooftop, you should be able to see the plate of a whole chicken on top of a water tank. As usual, if you destroyed that water tank, the food will be destroyed as well. But getting to there isn't as simple as a single jump. Instead, you will have jump multiple times, starting from the square-shaped elevated floor on the top right of this screen. The chicken brings your health to a full 100%. The water tank on the right contains 3 bombs. Since you will be fighting only basic enemies, this area shouldn't be all that hard. However, if you killed off all the enemies and you haven't took the chicken, it will be difficult to get the chicken, especially if you are in control of Kongoh. Therefore, it is recommended to keep one last spearman alive so that you have more time to get to the chicken for some healing. When you're done, head to the right and your characters will jump off from the roof of the building. You will see them in a fall from a rather great height until the next cutscene, where they land in a rooftop of yet another building. They don't break any bones or get injured in any way from that huge fall that they made, which is a mystery. Once you're in the rooftop which advertises Noise Factory, you have the option of getting the sandwich contained in the box on top of the screen before fighting. This shouldn't be needed because the chicken would have done all the healing you need anyway - unless you are in a two player game. Either way, moving to the right should result in 4 basic spearmen appearing, two by two. Defeating them will give you another 4 basic swordsmen to kill. Do so until the go arrow tells you to move to the right. Run all the way to the right until you see a weird-looking guy on a cloud of bats (that's the old man with bats) and run all the way to the left. The old man with bats should follow you to the extreme left, which will isolate it from the basic spearman which spawns on the right. If you have shurikens, throw them slowly on this old man until he dies. If not, use specials. When the old man dies, he drops gold bars which are worth 5000 points. If you killed him quickly enough, the basic spearman would still be at the edge of the screen at the right. Four basic spearmen should be around at this point. However, you do have a huge screen space to run around to bunch them up and finish them off. Female ninjas will also spawn at higher difficulties - take advantage of the large screen space to deal with them as well. Once only a single enemy is left, you should make your way to the top right of this level. Finish off this last enemy and jump on top of the red steel I-beam and sprint non-stop to your right. When the screen shifts to allow you to move to the right, destroy the potted plant as quickly as possible - a chain of A,B,A,A,B or air combos work nicely. Grab the handheld - perhaps a NeoGeo pocket colour, for a cool 10000 points. Your characters will make their way out of that small corridor and jump from the centre - instead of jumping off at that place immediately. It doesn't make any sense if you ask me. Anyway, now you are at a train station and a train has just left. This is one of the areas which you could abuse the system where only 4 enemies can be at the screen at once. A go arrow prompts you to head right, do so while standing on the yellow warning line. When the enemies pop up, run to the left. They should follow you and a few of the basic swordsmen should fall into the lower platform. Deal with the remaining swordsmen on the same platform as you - if any. If all the swordsmen fell into the lower platform, then jump off from the right and kill all of them. Either way, try to get one or two basic swordsmen to hang around at the lower part of the level. When that is done, move slowly to your right until two yellow samurais appear and run to your left. They will charge at you together so deal with them with either a jumping A or a running B. Do the same thing again, moving slowly the right and running to the left. Deal with the two yellow samurais - one of them might jump down the lower platform but it shouldn't be too much to deal with one or two swordsmen and one yellow samurai. When they're settled, two more yellow samurai could spawn - when the machine is on level 6 and above. Lure them to the train tracks and finish them off. Once that's done, proceed to the lower right edge of the higher platform - where two advanced spearmen will spawn at. Throw punches fiercely and then combo, depending on what the other spearman does, you might need to pull off a special and retreat to the lower platform. When they are all lured to the bottom, it is just about doing combos and pulling off specials when you notice that you are at risk of losing life. Again, after you defeat them, your character will pull off an amazing acrobatic feat of jumping up the subway stairs to the city instead of climbing them. Once you are outside, you should see three telephone booths and a street sign. Unfortunately, only the street sign can be destroyed. If you need healing, the cup noodles from the street sign does help quite a lot. If you do not want the enemies to spawn yet while you heal, you need to stand as close to the left of the cup noodles as possible. When you're ready, move to the right and two basic swordsmen and an advanced spearman will spawn. The advanced spearman will throw his spear as he enters the screen and you should stay out of the way. At this point, instead of killing everybody, you can try and get rid of only the advanced spearman. Doing so will make sure that you do not have to deal with two advanced swordsmen and two advanced spearmen simultaneously. This is rather hard to pull off in one player. But in a two-player game, the other player could play as Kongoh and carry around one basic swordsman while the other player gets rid of the rest of the enemies that come in groups of two. Things can get very messy here as more advanced spearmen, swordsmen and yellow samurais spawn. Use your specials here liberally. When no more enemies appear, run to the right and run back. Two yellow samurais will line up for your slashing pleasure. Move to the right again and you will see a projectile fly towards you, and your character will automatically jump to avoid it. A boss fight ensures. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Byakki Introduction: Falcon/Kurenai/Kongoh: Lord Byakki! Kagetsura: Brother! Byakki: Now here's a howdy-do, sires... (At least "sires" is much better than "ho") Byakki: You shall now taste the rage of one who was falsely accused and banished from the clan. You: Falsely accused?! Just what was behind your sudden disppearence? Byakki: I was framed! No one believed me... save Mistress Okuni... Byakki: Bah! Enough idle words, sires! 'Tis time for action!! Defeated: Byakki: Quickly! Finish me off! You: Do you not share a similar duty? I beg of you, fight with me! Byakki: Argh! What now...? You'll regret your foolish mercy! (turns and runs) Magically, you will see that Byakki still has his blade with him, despite the fact that it has flown away to the far left of the screen. This man has a nasty habit of interrupting attacks that do not chain properly with his own attacks - this makes sure that if you do attack him make sure you press your buttons right. While he is a reasonably easy boss to defeat, his spearman minions make your job slightly more complicated. He isn't really much of a concern as he is completely helpless when he is not in the same horizontal plane as you. You cannot really afford long combos on this boss as he has spearman minions to assist him. Always strive to protect yourself and put damaging the boss as the second priority. When you are in the same horizontal plane as him but he is far away, he would do a running jump B on you, something which you can easily avoid by moving up or down. Use the same strategy as you would deal with the fire samurai to deal with him, he really isn't that hard. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================================================================== [007d] Brazil After you defeated your third boss, your character(s) will begin to walk to the left, only to find themselves surrounded by the top halves of monsters. Okuni and Byakki appears and Byakki does his DM to save you. Okuni: I could not leave you to foul destiny's hands... Byakki: If I let this opportunity go by, I am but a traitor. Byakki: Say you believe in me now, and I will join you in battle. You: Well then, let's slice and dice some booty! The character select screen will show again and you may now select Okuni and Byakki. At the start, you are treated to a little boat ride. The boat that is used is the same as the one that you see in Italy. You should be able to see two interesting looking stone totems. The one on the right contains a crystal ball while the one of the left contains rice balls. If you are selecting either of the "boss" characters, repeatedly body bashing into the totems would charge up about 1 power bar each. Proceed to the right and you will encounter frogs. Deal with frogs by doing running Bs and then combo. From this point onwards, it would be helpful to stock up on bombs. When the frogs are dead, a go arrow points to the right. Run and jump towards that direction and should now be standing behind two monsters and more frogs. Do a simple standing combo - end it with a special if you wish. Air combos are not really recommended at this point, as frogs could easily nail you in mid-air. When the coast is clear, you can bash the wall on the right to charge up more power. Be careful though, as you can accidentally destroy the wall with a bash which will result in you in taking the longer path. If you are a first-timer and do not want to waste credits, you should go up the platform at the top. If you just want to see what's so interesting about that hole in the wall, then by all means proceed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you went up by the elevated platform, skip this whole section. If not, read on. Now that you have entered this underground passage of sorts, the first thing that attracts your attention should be the chasms of fire and spiked flooring that are ahead of you. You do not need to face any enemies yet, besides that fire chasms and spikes (if you consider those to be enemies). Common sense should tell you to jump over the obstacles. do so. The first jump is not that hard. If you are having problems, try standing as close to the spikes or fire chasms as possible and do a normal jump. On this first platform where you jumped to, there is a totem containing cup noodles if you need healing. Move further to the right and faces will show up. Faces are rather predictable opponents that you can treat as frogs. You can do air combos on them - but the fire chasms will make that quite difficult to achieve. Either way, you will be facing quite a lot of these floating freaks while being careful not to touch the fires on the floor. Upon exiting the dungeon, you will encounter more faces and you should already have stocked up on bombs already. When they're dead, move right and four monsters will magically appear in your screen. Move up a bit and kill them quickly and stay around that area with the totem. Destroy the totem and pick up the green bottle (looks like poison) to heal. Faces should get stuck on the left, move over there and finish them off. Move over to the next area. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When you enter this area, you should be able to see the pyramids in the background. Besides the pyramids, there are also 3 frog statues that look deceptively like the frogs you encountered before. In a short while, you will see the statues come to life. You shouldn't stand next to them, however, as they will do their defensive recoveries. Kill them off quickly. Destroy the top totem for a sandwich and the bottom totem for bombs. Move to the right and kill the two more frogs that appear. When they're dead run all the way to the right while staying at the centre of the screen. If you do it right, you should be standing right behind an advanced samurai. Do a quick combo on him and end it with a special when the advanced spearmen are about to hit you. The samurai should be dead first and two more advanced spearmen will throw their spears to signal their arrival. When this happens, you should run around the screen in an attempt to gather the spearmen together. Since advanced spearmen move quickly and have a long range a large group consisting of 4 of them will make them very difficult to handle - you may want to use specials here. Now move to the top of the screen and sprint to the right. A blaze of fire should sweep across the screen rapidly - that's the phoenix. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Phoenix The phoenix has four attacks. The phoenix is only invulnerable during its defensive escape. This first one is the flaming charge (it looks suspiciously similar to Falcon's "Flight of the Phoenix" special), which is easily avoided by walking up or down. The second one, the diving attack, is slightly more difficult to avoid. However, the cry of the phoenix can be heard before it actually does the attack and gives you ample time to prepare. The diving attack must follow a flaming charge and is the only time the phoenix will/can do it. If the phoenix leaves the screen with the anything except a flaming charge, it will perform an off-screen flaming charge. If it stays in the screen, it will do either the lightning flap (which is fast but can only hit horizontally) or the fireballs (which fans out but is slow) . If you manage to launch the phoenix, you can actually combo it in the air. However, after exactly ten hits, the phoenix will perform a defensive escape, which is basically just flying away, into charge and then dive. If you stand next to the phoenix when it recovers, it will go into super-armour mode and cannot be knocked down, raining fireballs at the same time. In this situation, characters like Byakki can spam his reserve of weapons (Especially bombs!) and cause horrendous damage to the phoenix, usually to the point of killing it, since Byakki throws weapons so damn quickly. One last point of note: the phoenix's flaming tail can damage you if you stand too near it. So in a two player game, players should stand on the same side to so to avoid getting burned by the tail. When its dead, collect the gold bars that are dropped. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After that long jump, you are now at the stage where you will fight the boss. But before that, you might want to destroy the wooden barrels to get items. The lower one contains a chicken while the one on top contains bombs. It is possible to get only the bombs without engaging the enemy. An old man with bats and two advanced samurais will appear to give you problems, I advise that you get rid of "batman" first. Move to the left to fight the frog boss. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Frog Boss The boss has only two attacks. Both attacks have the same "reaching to my backpack" startup animation. Although both attacks are very damaging, they are way too predictable to be actually of any concern. The first attack is where he pulls out an arm-supported cannon and fires a cannonball. The cannonball splits itself in a wave like fashion and effectively covers the whole screen ahead of him. It is, however, decently easy to jump over the cannonball shot. Less experienced players can choose to perform specials to avoid the blast. The boss is completely vulnerable throughout this attack and you can actually disrupt the shot by attacking him before he blasts his cannon. In his second attack, he pulls out a sword and briefly slashes forwards. He is invincible throughout this attack's duration and, if used as a defensive recovery, hits instantly. He will only attempt the sword slash attack if you were standing reasonably close to him. He will try his cannonball blast in all other situations. With these in mind, you can bait him to do his cannonball blast by standing a good distance away or above/below him and punish him after that. Just be careful of the frogs and their defensive recoveries. When he's dead, its time for the USA stage. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================================================================== [007e] USA When you jump into this area from who knows where, you should be able to see a motorbike like the one in the China stage. It contains plates, which are useless (from this point on), so don't bother picking them up. You can body bash the bike to charge up power nonetheless and it is good to have it out of the way for more screen space. Move to the right and you will encounter three red vultures. These birds are even more annoying than female ninjas. However, since they are the basic version of vultures, they will not do their diving attack that often. So if you kept them in your screen, they should be manageable. Even as they jump into the screen, they can do their defensive recoveries, so you should stay away. Walking up or down is great way to avoid them. Stock up on the useful kunais that they drop. Once no more of those birds spawn, move slowly to your right as guided by the go arrow. When you see enemies appear, run to your left. The houndsmaster, along with two advanced samurais, should gather nicely in a bunch for you to kill. When they're dead, two basic vultures and two advanced spearmen will come and join the fun, use specials liberally. When they're dead, head over to the right and destroy the stop sign for a hamburger. Do not move too far to the right though, or you could lose the chance of getting to pick it up. Two choices are given to you at this point. You can either follow the road for advanced female ninjas, hellhounds and basic vultures or jump down to the sewers where you will encounter frogs and faces. I recommend that you go to the bottom path for it is much easier. However, going the top path allows you, in a two-player game, to stock up full on kunais. Unlike in the Brazil stage, none of the paths are actually shortcuts, they are just alternate paths leading to the boss fight. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The top path When you enter this area, you will see three red vultures on top of the wall. Jump up and run all the way to the right and then jump down from the wall. The vultures will awaken and charge at you, but they will miss. Try to finish them off together, or you will have a problem when the hellhounds come. If you didn't manage to kill off all the vultures and the hellhounds appear, do a DM. Once they're all dead, move along the lower path, following the go arrow. 2 basic and 2 advanced female ninjas should appear on top of the wall. When they do, run to your left. If you need a bit of healing, you can jump up to the top of the wall from that position and run to the right. There is a potted plant containing a burger. If there are no vulture at any point of time, you can take advantage of the block of wall at the centre of the level to block your enemies. All you need to do is to stand on one side of the wall and enemies will pile up on the opposite side. Use specials to get rid of them when they do. Once they're all dead, jump on top of the wall and run to your right, jump off the wall when you reached the edge of it. By doing so, you should be standing next to the houndsmaster. Grab him and throw him to the left, this will knock down the hellhounds along with the houndsmaster, where they can be easily dealt with. Move towards the top right and destroy the brown-coloured steel barrel that is above the hole which you are supposed to jump down. It contains another handheld worth 5000 points. This time given to you to grab it is very short though. Skip the next section for info about the boss fight. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The bottom path If you chose this path, then you will end up in a rather similar situation as the one you had when you chose the bottom path in Brazil. Initially, you only have to deal with faces in a wide, open area. Keep your eyes open for blue skulls and avoid them as well. Further on in the next screen, you will have to deal with frogs, faces as well as electric fences. These fences have a wider hit area then it seems. Try to get to less constricted areas with less fencing and finish them off. Spits and electric fences will make staying unharmed difficult, so use bombs if you have them - they are not very useful against the boss. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Lightning Boss This boss is a major pain to deal with. He possess an extremely annoying multiple lightning spheres attack as well as a plethora of moves that grant him annoyingly long invincibility. To top it off, he has brown spearmen and occasionally green samurais to complicate matters. You should know that it is very very easy to lose health in this fight. You need to be constantly on your toes in order to defeat him unscathed. The lightning boss always starts the match with a lightning sphere attack. Anticipating that, dash jump towards him. This will land you at a very advantageous position far from his minions. Immediately use a special, or jump away, when any of the lightning spheres risk touching you. I advise that you only attack him after he finishes a slow attack, like his teleport attack, as his attacks makes his whole body electrified, damaging you when you go near him. There is a way to do extreme damage to the boss and it is quite possible to finish him in one combo. However, this is rather hard to pull off. First, you must be controlling Byakki for this to work. Start off the fight by gathering the lightning boss with his minions to either side of the screen. Use the A+B+C defensive escape if you have to. The moment they are bunched together, combo them with B,B,B,A,B,A,A and then throw all 9 kunais. His minions should be dead by now. Once you are done unloading, do his A special. Even though bosses are able to block normal moves, they are unable to block specials. This means that you can juggle the boss repeatedly in the corner with Byakki's A special and potentially kill him off in one painful combo. You now have one last stage to defeat - Kyoto ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================================================================== [007f] Kyoto Unlike other stages, you do not start off with a fight immediately. Instead you will see your characters jump into a hole formed at a zebra crossing. To deal with the door boss you will face later, you should stock up on bombs at this point onwards. Once you jumped down, you will not encounter enemies immediately. Instead, you need to move to the right and 4 advanced swordsmen should appear. Utilise the screen space as much as you can, running and jumping to gather the enemies and take them out. Waves of advanced enemies will appear, 4 by 4, in this sequence: Spearmen, samurais, hellhounds. Followed by two green samurais and two houndsmasters. After those, you will encounter one of the most irritating enemies in the game - advanced vultures. Advanced vultures like spamming their diving attack a lot and this makes them very difficult to handle in groups. If there is just one normal enemy worth using specials on, it is them. Further down, you should encounter a houndsmaster and two hellhounds. Lure the hellhounds and finish them off. After that, bring the houndsmaster to the far left, throwing him if necessary. Keep him alive and grab the buns contained in the barrel in the far right. Finish the houndsmaster off after grabbing the buns. When you move ahead again 4 of the damn advanced vultures should drop into the screen. Run as far left as you can to try and get them together. Use specials. Once they're dead, two more advanced vultures and two advances samurais should appear. Kill them using specials as well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Door Boss The door boss, possibly the easiest boss in the game, has a major weakness - it cannot do any form or defensive recovery or defensive escape and can't be "tripped". Two things in the game work exceptionally well on this boss - bombs and Falcon's B special. Since the boss cannot be knocked down, bombs will hit the boss twice for ridiculous damage, so characters like, again, Byakki and Kagetsura, with their insane throwing speed, can finish the boss in seconds. Working in the same way as bombs, Falcon's fire wing special can hit the boss twice - Once during the conjuration of the wings and once during the launching of them - also causing great damage. At the start of the fight, dash straight into him, do B,B,B,A,B,A,A and throw all your bombs on it. The fight will finish so quickly you'd laugh. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In this section, you should run to your right as quickly as possible and avoid the spears thrown by the advanced spearmen. Combo them as they bunch up. 3 more advanced spearmen should come from the right. Avoid their spears, gather them up and then finish them off. More screen space is available to do that. Finish off the proceeding waves of advanced swordsmen in this fashion as well. When you killed off 6 advanced swordsmen, 4 monsters will appear in the screen. Bunch them together while avoiding the heads and then finish them off. Two more advanced female ninjas should appear later, but you can take advantage of the wide area you can run about. When you finished the two of them, four more will jump down in a similar fashion as the monsters. Again, run around, gather, and kill. When the four ladies are down, two more will appear. You have to be careful at this point or you'll accidentally trigger the boss fight with these female ninjas. Do not move past the wooden barrel. The screen space will suddenly get restricted - but it should not be too hard dealing with two advanced female ninjas. When you are ready, destroy the wooden barrel and carefully pick up the cup noodles - if you need it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Second encounter of The Fire Boss He is pretty much the same as before, except he has a different colour and he apparently loves to do the hopping fire explosions. You can take advantage of his jumping habit and isolate him from his minions. This is not a true boss fight, so it means that the minions that are spawned have a limit and will stop spawning if you kill enough of them. Before you carry that out, let me tell you that it is a very painful affair to eliminate his minions while the boss is pounding the ground with his jumps. So what you should to do is the exact opposite - kill the boss as quickly as possible and get rid of the minions later. The boss doesn't have much life and two long combos will be able to kill him. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In this area, you should be able to see gaps with spikes in them. Approach the spikes from the bottom of the screen and jump across, you should be able to avoid the yellow skulls this way. Finish off the faces while keeping on the left edge of the level. There is another wooden barrel containing cup noodles somewhere at the centre of the level if you need it. Once those faces are dead, celebrate and throw confetti, for you won't see any of them anymore. Jump across the spikes and you see yet another wooden barrel. It contains buns. If you do not take it before the enemies appear then you probably won't be able to take it without being interrupted, so it will be helpful to do a A+B+C defensive escape and grab it. In this tiny area, you will face a swordsman, spearman, 2 samurais and 2 female ninjas, all in their advanced forms. This is probably the hardest normal fight of the game, so use specials like there's no tomorrow. When that's done, the last two old men with bats will jump in for a fight. They most probably won't stand together, so you should kill them separately. If they do stand together, make them regret it. It's time for the last boss in the game. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The Timeless Soul" You: It is not too late. The evil deity has not yet revived completely. You: Then we must not miss this golden opportunity! Evil: My resurrection is ineluctable. No one can stop it! Instead of standing in awe, run to the right as fast as you can at the start, or you will get hit by an advanced swordsman. The last boss, a.k.a "The Timeless Soul", presents a great challenge. He has a highly damaging 3-hit combo that takes away 60% and players with average reaction times will likely take at least two hits before using a special to avoid further damage. In this case, the two hits will still do about 40% damage. The trademark move of this boss, however, has to be the full screen attack. The boss holds up his blade and has a fiery aura around him. The screen then turns purple and blue. Soon after many a row of skulls will appear and start to streak horizontally across the screen - this happens a total of four times. A Kanji/Chinese character appears in the background, read in Chinese as "Yuan", throughout the whole attack. His full screen attack will hereafter be known as "Yuan". Do not try to attack him while he is in this stance, he is completely invincible. Furthermore, if you come into contact with his burning body you will lose a hell lot of life. Do not use due to "Yuan": Kagetsura: Lightning Flash Attack Falcon: Devouring Flames Kurenai: Kurenai's Slicing Blade Although you are highly recommended to use specials on this boss to do as much damage as possible, using these specials on him will usually result in him doing his "Yuan", which equates to mega ouch. This is especially so for Falcon. Let's say you chained into his devouring flames. After connecting the flaming uppercut, you will be stuck in many recovery frames, all while standing right next to the boss, where he will most likely do his "Yuan". Now for the skulls, unlike yellow or blue skulls earlier in the game, they cannot be destroyed with normal means - that is to say, attacks or specials. This means that the only real choice of avoiding it will be either jumping or hitting an enemy while the skulls moves past. While the boss can throw out his "Yuan" at anytime he wishes, he generally only does it when you stand quite near to him and if you broke a combo. In the case which you are stuck in a bad situation where you are surrounded and the boss pulls off this annoying attack, you can use a DM to bail yourself out. The DM actually cancels out his "Yuan" and make all the skulls vaporise. However, if you stand close to the boss and execute a DM, you will likely get attacked afterwards because there is recovery lag from the DM and the boss doesn't get knocked down. This boss does like to block slash attacks, basically meaning that you will usually have to resort to using nothing but punches or kicks. He doesn't block the first attack that is made on him that is done with a slash, but he will block everything after that slash is made. To play it safe, do a B,B,B,B,B combo and then dash away. Rinse and repeat. There are, however, two ways in which you can do major damage to him. The first way is done with Byakki. First, combo him with an all B combo into a last A, that is, to press the B button to get five hits on the boss, press A to get him to throw his weapon and then cancel it into his A special. Byakki will recover from the A special before the boss does, and he is able to walk down a little. The boss will then follow Byakki down, where you can pull off the same thing again. In fact, it is possible to drive the boss into healing in four of such sequences, without ever excite him enough to pull off his "Yuan". The other way can be achieved with any other character, the only condition is to have a large reserve of bombs and then start throwing it on him. The only difference between throwing bombs on the last boss compared to the Phoenix and the Evil Door boss is that you should not throw it in quick succession. Instead, you should wait a short while before each toss, such that each bomb will touch the boss once it has recovered from the previous one. There is no better setup to this other than throwing it directly, if you cancelled into throwing the bomb from any of your normal sequence of attacks, chances are he will pull off his "Yuan". If you do not mind this minor spoiler, read on. Evil: Goowhoa! The vendetta entrusted to me... will not be buried in the earth's bowels a second time... (melts away in a pink mess) You: Vendettas guide people to misery, now return to the darkness. Evil: I will arise again, whenever and wherever one has need for my power! (Envelopes in dark smoke and disappears) You: (Walks towards the left, leaving the screen) Kagetsura: Our job is done... Falcon: We cannot escape the gravity of this age. Kongoh: But before the evil one awakes again, other ninjas will be raised to follow in our footsteps. Byakki: And the timeless weapons, too, shall serve new masters. Kagetsura: Well then, I know not when, but I swear this: we'll meet again... (All runs and jumps away to the left) (Notice how only the men talk) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [008] Contacts and special thanks My email is corlist (at) hotmail )dot( com That's without the parenthesis and replacing at with @ and replacing dot with a full stop. Email me if you have questions about the game or want to suggest some kind of strategies. Emails pointing out grammar or spelling mistakes are also welcome. Please put the title of the email you want to send "Sengoku 3 FAQ". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Special thanks to SNK Playmore (c) / Noise Factory For developing and publishing this classic Mr. Steven89 For showing me this game and for being an amazing Kurenai player Some of the text inside is actually written by him, so if you find that some parts of the FAQ seems to be of a different tone, it is because I couldn't bring myself to change them. My keyboard For withstanding 42 pages of torture Myself For realising my dream of writing an FAQ/Walkthrough My daughters For healing my soul when it felt broken and for always being there... still Both of you are indeed a very strong motivational force while I am writing this FAQs. You For reading ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================================================================== Sengoku 3 FAQ v1.2 Copyright (c) CT, Chua 2007-2008