xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxHakuoki: Warriors of the Shinsengumixxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---------- Disclaimer ---------- This is not a spoiler-free FAQ. While I never actually play the Hakuoki: Demon of Fleeting Blossom, or watch the anime adapatation. Bosses name, character description, and strategies on this FAQ may be contain a spoiler for those who are concerned or sensitive about spoilers. I will, however, not go into the details about the story description between mission in story mode, and try to keep spoilers minimum on that. ----------------- Table of Contents ----------------- I. Introduction II. How to play A. Controls B. Battlefield C. Post-battle D. Fury (Rasetsu) form III. Characters IV. Unlockables A. Characters B. Difficulty C. Extra V. Items and Jewelry A. Item B. Jewelry VI. Bosses Strategy --------------- I. Introduction --------------- Hakuoki: Warrios of the Shinsengumi is a spin-off game from Hakuoki: Demon of Fleeting Blossom. The original game is a visual novel otome game set in the Bakumatsu era (roughly 1853 to 1867), centering around the men of Shinsengumi (founded in 1863). Player avatar is a girl called Chizuru Yukimura, and the objective of the game is to develop a relationship with one of the heavily fictionalized Shinsengumi members. Warriors of the Shinsengumi, however, is a vastly different game compared to the original game. It adopts a traditional hack and slash beat-em up like how the currently popular Dynasty Warrior is. Basically, you control one of the Shinsengumi members, face of against hundred of infinitely spawning enemies, and only finish the level once you beat the designated boss of the stage. --------------- II. How to play --------------- A. Controls ----------- TO grasp the basic, you can familiarize yourself with Dojo mode. It is basically a tutorial explaining the control of the game, especially if you are unfamiliar with hack and slash genre like Dynasty Warriors series. To summarize: D-pad - camera movement Analog - character movement Square - normal attack Triangle - powerful attack Triangle (hold, then release) - charge attack Cross - jump Circle - "sakura" attack L - quick camera adjust in front of you R - guard R+analog - sidestep Triangle+analog - sweep / running attack By pressing square numerous times, you can also deal "combos". Usually up to4 times. This combo, while weak, is ideal for clearing a lot of enemies when you find yourself surrounded. You can also further combine square buttons with triangle buttons to deal a "powerful combo". It is done by pressing triangle button before the square button finishing attack (4th attack of square). This combo, while powerful, sometimes leave you an opening to enemies attack for certain characters, especially enemies with firearms. Use with caution. B. Battlefield -------------- To finish a stage, there are usually "goals" you have to fulfill. The game itself is extremely clear on this, so you should not get lost or unsure how to finish a stage. The goals are usually; 1) Head to designated location, as shown in the map. 2) Defeat certain number of enemies (usually 10 to 20). 3) Defeat the area boss, as shown in the map. After combination of above, you will be presented with the stage boss. Defeat to finish the stage, or don't approach if you still want to earn experience or money. C. Post-battle -------------- Finishing a stage will earn you experience, money, and items. Experience, like in many RPG genre, is to level up your character. In this game, leveling up with earn your character extra health. Attack and defense, however, with not rise as you level up. Money and items are for crafting a jewel, and equipable item. The item that you get alone are merely ingredients, you will need both money and items to craft an equipable one. Equipable item have many advantage, from the most basic one like increasing health, attack, defense, or the borderline useless one like changing the music to your liking. D. Fury (Rasetsu) form ---------------------- Unique to Hakuoki setting and storyline, apparently, there is a drug that transforms some of the characters in Hakuoki a being stronger than ordinary human. Out of the eight playable characters, six of them have this fury form. The characters that cannot assume fury form are Sanosuke Harada and Shinpachi Nagakura. The transformation to fury form happens when you lose all your health. Reviving you with full health and stronger status. However, it is best that you do not get overconfident after entering a fury form, because if a stage is strong enough to overwhelm you, and make you lose all health, you would best be very cautious, after being revived in fury form. Treat is more like second chance to finish the stage, rather than a strong power boost. Beware that, however, this seems to happen on random frequency. Sometimes, you MAY not trigger the fury form upon losing all your life and simply treated to game over screen. It may or may not be caused by storyline. For example, after the Memorial story mode after Hajime Saito willingly take the drug to enter fury form, you will always go into fury form after losing all your life from that stage onwards. I would advise you just to treat your first life as your last life, playing with caution all the time, and not relying on the fury form to trigger at all upon death. If you ever somehow die, and get revived as fury form, play even more cautious, like I stated above. --------------- III. Characters --------------- Toshizo Hijikata (CV: Shinichiro Maki) -------------------------------------- Hp per level: average Atk: 100 Def: 100 For some reason, he has a lot of thrusting in all his attack. Thus making it hard to connect his combo properly at times, especially against many enemies at once. His powerful combo has a large overhead slash after the first sword thrust. While the combo itself is guaranteed to connect to whoever you hit, beware that the slow overhead slash may leave you vulnerable to firearms for a bit. Take caution when using this against boss that has firearms enemies visible. His sakura attack consisted of flurry of slashes, followed by couple of thrusts, and finished with another flurry of slashes. Connecting the thrusts into finishing slashes may be tricky at times because it is possible to push enemy bosses too far with your thrusts, making them too far for the finishing slashes to connect. The easy way to make sure all of the attacks connect is to corner enemy into wall, before unleashing the sakura attack. Souji Okita (CV: Showtaro Makikubo) ----------------------------------- Hp per level: Very low Atk: 130 Def: 90 (lowest def) His third square attack will lunge him forward with a wide horizontal slash. Useful when surrounded by many enemies. His powerful combo is very fast and cover a lot of ground, even your back, before the wide finishing slash. Good against enemies and bosses alike. His sakura attack is even harder to utilize than Toshizo Hijikata, as it begins with a flurry of thrusts, ending with a long range thrust. Because of the far range of the finishing thrust, you can still connect it, but it is very hard to land. To use it effectively, like Toshizo Hijikata sakura attack, corner enemy bosses into a wall before unleashing it. Hajime Saito (CV: Kohsuke Toriumi) ---------------------------------- Hp per level: low Atk: 125 Def: 95 Like Souji Okita, his third square attack will make him dash forward, although his slash have less coverage compared to the former. Still useful regardless, when surrounded by many enemies. His powerful combo will connects automatically after you land the first slash, useful against single enemy like the bosses. It does not cover much when surrounded though, so it is best to just use his normal combo against many enemies. His sakura attack consisted of numerous fast and wide slashes in front of him, followed by huge slash in the end. Not a lot of mobility, but a very good sakura attack against enemies and bosses. The last slash has considerable delay that will make probably miss most of the time though. Be careful where you land the last slash, as you may give the AI an opening that they need. Heisuke Toudou (CV: Hiroyuki Yoshino) ------------------------------------- Hp per level: average Atk: 90 (lowest atk) Def: 95 Despite having the lowest attack and defend. He has a lot of agility to offer. His most notable attack is his sweep / dash attack. It dash him forward very far, and can be follow up by a slash and ending with an upward slash. His powerful combo also cover a lot of range, but his jumping overhead slash is actually slow compared to the rest of his combo, and kinda hard to connect. Still faster than Toshizo Hijikata overhead slash though. Most of the time, the enemies should not be able to interrupt you. His sakura attack is very, very agile. You can move freely in his sakura attack, unlike any other character in this game, and make sure all your attack hits. One of the best sakura attack in this game to use against enemies and bosses alike. Sanosuke Harada (CV: Kouji Yusa) -------------------------------- Hp per level: high Atk: 140 Def: 100 Perhaps due to his choice of weapon, his normal attack coverage is really good. His first two normal attack will generally hit almost everything around you. However, his normal attack and overhead slash of his powerful combo is very hard connect, to the point you might as well just stick with his normal combo in all situation. If you can master his powerful combo though, then it's really worth dishing out the damage. Still, beware that it is kinda slow and can be interrupted by enemies like Toshizo Hijikata overhead slash. His sakura attack, unfortunately, is like brick compared to Heisuke Toudou. It is consisted of series of slashes, followed by couple of thrusts, and finished with another slash. Like his normal attack, the spear slashes in his sakura attack can reach quite far. Unlike Toshizo Hijikata, it is also easier to connect his thrusts into the final slash. Another problem is Sanosuke Harada himself is hardly moving during his sakura attack, and thus, it might miss if you unleash your sakura attack too far. You don't need to corner the enemy bosses on the wall to make sure all his sakura attack connects, but you would best position yourself next to them before unleashing it. ----------- Unlockables ----------- A. Characters ------------- Unlockable characters are Chikage Kazama, Keisuke Sanan, and Shinpachi Nagakura. To unlock Chikage Kazama, finish Hijikata Toshizo Memorial story mode. Chikage Kazama will be unlocked on Memorial story mode and skirmish. To unlock Chikage Kazama original story mode, finish Chronicle story mode with every Shinsengumi characters. To unlock Keisuke Sannan, finish Heisuke Toudou Memorial story mode. Keisuke Sannan is only useable on skirmish mode. To unlock Shinpachi Nagakura, finish Sanosuke Harada Memorial story mode. You may also need Keisuke Sannan to be unlocked beforehand, or finish Heisuke Toudou Memorial story mode after. Shinpachi Nagakura is only useable on skirmish mode. Chikage Kazama (CV: Kenjiro Tsuda) ---------------------------------- Hp per level: Very high Atk: 170 (highest atk) Def: 95 A difficult character to use despite his amazing raw attack stat. His normal combo ends with a thrust that will lunge him forward. Totally not safe to use, honestly, because the range is very narrow. The catch is, unlike other character, you can actually combine with normal combo with his sweep / dash attack right after the end of his normal combo. The sweep / dash attack will make Chikage Kazama dash in front of him with horizontal slash, followed by back step and another dash slash, ending with an upward slash. The move, in entirely, is very hard to make it work properly. His powerful combo is an upward slash, followed by couple of thrust before doing a wide slash that will knock the enemy away. The thrust deals a lot of damage to enemy bosses, but take not that it is very easy to miss with due to the narrow range of the thrusts. It will also leave you vulnerable to firearms enemies if you do not take care of them beforehand. In my opinion, the general idea of using Chikage Kazama is not to rely so much on his normal or powerful combo, but his unique movement in between combo that allows him to dash forward and backstep to avoid enemies and scatter them, even if you cannot connect the whole combo. His sweep / dash attack alone is very useful when you want to target a firearms unit. His sakura attack is very awkward to use. The first three slashes are very, very slow, especially the third one, which will most likely give enemy bosses time to block, or evade the rest of the attack if you cannot land the delayed third slash. If you can connect his delayed third slash however, what follow is a flurry of slashes, ending with another wide slash in the end, dealing a very painful damage due to his high attack. However, another problem is that, like many other characters sakura attack, you probably would not be able to connect it unless you cornered the enemy bosses into a wall. Thus, it is not really a sakura attack that you should rely on frequently, but can almost guaranteed to kill boss up to hard mode, if they do not manage to block or avoid all the sakura attack. Shinpachi Nagakura (CV: Tomohiro Tsuboi) ---------------------------------------- Hp per level: Very high Atk: 120 Def: 110 (highest def) Sort of powerhouse character, but slow. His third normal attack have quite a delay, and his powerful combo first slash is probably the slowest combo in the game. For his powerful combo to connect, you must start a powerful combo from third normal attack, so that you can keep the enemy in the air until your first slash of powerful combo can land. It deals quite a lot of damage to bosses, but considering that you have to take a risk of landing two slow attacks in succession, be very mindful of your surrounding before performing the powerful combo. Surprisingly, his sweep / dash attack is quite quick, so use that to escape If you are ever surrounded by enemies. You can also actually connect his sweep / dash attack from normal combo without doing the slow slash. The trick is to push the square button exactly twice, then delay your timing a bit before pushing the analog pad + triangle button. This way, you can have a quick 4 hits combo with Shinpachi Nagakura. His sakura attack consisted of two huge slashes, followed by the slowest possible attack, ever, out of all sakura attack, despite the long range. Needless to say, you will most likely miss this, even when you already cornered bosses into wall, making the rest of slashes after that irrelevant. Do not rely on this sakura attack so much for ultimate damage dealer. Be very careful of enemy counterattack if you did not land the third slash. Keisuke Sannan (CV: Nobuo Tabita) --------------------------------- Hp per level: low Atk: 125 Def: 105 Unlike the rest of the characters, his normal combo is quite unreliable to clear many enemies at once, just stick to his powerful combo instead. Uniquely, you can do his powerful combo in two ways. You can either use square button two times before pushing triangle to do an upward swing, rendering enemies defendless in the air, or use square button three times before pushing triangle to do a normal wide swing to the finishing slash. The first one is actually kinda hard to connect though, despite sounding more useful, as it is possible to mess up the timing combo when your enemy is in the air. I would stick to the second variation instead. His sakura attack consisted of couple of slashes in front of him, followed by three huge swing of slashes as finisher. It is fast enough for you to connect all the slashes. One of the better sakura attack in the game, despite having less number of slashes compared to other characters. B. Difficulty ------------- Initially available difficulty are easy, normal, and hard mode. The higher the difficulty, the more hp and defense that enemies has, as well as stronger attack. This is particularly apparent when you face off against a boss or getting shot by infinitely spawning firearms unit in harder stage. To unlock demon mode, the hardest difficulty, simply beat any story mode on hard, be it Chronicle or Memorial. Bear in mind that it really is not a cakewalk if you are new to the genre. I would recommend starting hard mode only after your character have at least two equipment slots (level 10+), and good jewels to equip. C. Extra -------- Galleries and audios are unlocked as you play through story mode, both Chronicle and Memorial. Galleries CAN be missed, if you proceed the stage to fast. Take your time and slowly finishing objective, and then defeat any suspicious enemies you see in order not to miss any. I myself still have problem getting everything unlocked in the galleries. Each character have unique "reward" voice as you finish the game in each difficulty, giving you the incentive to play the game finish the game on every difficulty (easy / normal / hard / demon). -------------------- V. Items and Jewelry -------------------- A. Item ------- Item is acquired by killing enemies or bosses, and they drop randomly, and I mean VERY randomly, without any set of pattern. No matter what difficulty you play, you can seemingly acquire any item on any given stage. However, it holds true that the higher difficulty you play on, the more chances you have in getting items to make a good jewelry equipment. On the flipside, you barely need any good jewelry on easy and normal difficulty, you can go without and item and finishing a stage just fine. You will definitely need them to go through hard mode though, and most importantly, demon mode. B. Jewelry ---------- Jewelry is basically the fancy name for equipable items here. The equpable jewelry can be a straightforward raw status boost, a boost in money / experience, a better chance to get otherwise hard to get items, or just to change music during battle to your favorite song of Hakuoki. The equipable jewelry always come in three level, which are; "slightly increase", "increase", and "greatly increase". The items needed to craft a "greatly increase" jewelry is naturally harder / rarer to come by compared to "slightly increase" jewelry. To give you a picture of how it works, "slightly increase" experience jewelry gives you extra 1 experience for every enemy defeated, "increase" experience jewelry gives you extra 2 experience for every enemy defeated, and "greatly increase" experience jewelry gives you extra 3 experience for every enemy defeated. While it may not look like much on paper, the difference will be apparent if you compare the experience gained after defeating 50 enemies. A more direct example would be how "slight increase" attack jewelry gives you only 20 raw attack boost, while "greatly increase" jewelry gives you 200 raw attack boost. A nice thing to know about jewelry is that they do stacks, when you equip more than one of them, whether it's raw status boost or the money / experience boost. For example; You can get up to 600 attack boost if you equip three adamant gauntlet, or you can receive extra 9 experience point for every enemy defeated if you equip 3 wish charm. On higher difficulty, you would want items that greatly reduce firearms damage, as these bunch are really nasty on difficulty like hard or demon. If you are brave enough, you could also just go rambo with three adamant gauntlets, completely focusing on killing enemies as swiftly as possible, before you get killed. ------------------- VI. Bosses strategy ------------------- Below are some of the unique bosses that you will encounter throughout the stages of Chronicle and Memorial mode. This is probably almost not necessary for easy or normal mode, but they could really pack some punch if they catch you off-guard. As such, I will list an effective strategy that I know of, on how to deal with them. Kyo Shiranui ------------ Recurring boss on Sanosuke Harada Memorial mode. Also sometimes fought on other characters story mode. Use a pair of guns, long range. His sakura attack can blow a chunk of your health without a chance to guard. In higher difficulty he could easily take 3/4 of your health until zero. Being a ranged fighter, he would naturally try to gain distance from you. Try to close the gap quickly with sweep / dash attack whenever he gets away from you, then combo him as soon as he try to get up. Kyujyou Amagiri --------------- Recurring boss on Heisuke Toudou Memorial mode. Also sometimes fought on other characters story mode. Use his fists to attack. His attack will frequently knock you in the air, leaving you defendless against another attack from him. Capitalize on his close range, use your weapon to start attacking him on distance and let the latter half of your combo damages him. Watch out for his sakura attack though. Chikage Kazama -------------- Recurring boss on almost every character story mode. Final boss for Toshizo Hijikata and Hajime Saitou Memorial story mode. Boss for chapter 5 of every Shinsengumi Chronicle story mode. His sword reach is quite long, but he does not really possess a wide swing attack, making it easy for you attack him from the sides. He attack can be quite damaging if you actually get caught in his combo though, beware of that. His sakura attack is hardly a threat unless you are backed into a wall. His sakura attack delay after his second swing will give you enough time to guard if you did not manage to do so when he unleash his sakura attack. Do so to reduce the damage. Kaoru Nagumo ------------ Exclusive recurring boss on Souji Okita Memorial mode, also the final boss. Honestly, He hardly has anything that stands out. His only dangerous move is a low sweep that can caught you off guard at times, but the damage itself is not much compared to what you can usually dish out. Especially when you are Souji Okita in the story mode. Just keep using Souji Okita powerful combo, and you should be able to take him down almost effortlessly, due to how agile it is. If there is anything noteworthy, just be careful not to get hit by his sakura attack. That's it. Keisuke Sannan -------------- Final boss on Heisuke Toudou Memorial mode. Even less noteworthy than Kaoru Nagumo as final boss, despite being a playable character. Nothing really dangerous about him. Just don't get hit by his sakura attack is all. In the story mode, just keep using Heisuke Toudou agile powerful combo to deal with him thoroughly. Takamori Saigo -------------- Boss for the first and third stage of every character Chronicle mode. Use huge gatling gun. Dangerous if you let him gain distance from you. His normal attack and sakura attack can pack quite a punch. However, he lacks the agility of Kyo Shiranui, making it easier to close the gap between you and him. Just make sure you are not surrounded by enemies while taking him down. Kogoro Katsura -------------- Boss for the second and fourth stage of every character Chronicle mode. He is a very agile as a swordsman, and his AI would sidestep a lot to avoid your combo, then counter attack you after your attack miss. His fourth stage incarnation is especially nasty with a lot of firearms enemies. He would sidestep your attack, let the firearms hit you, then whack you with his combo. To deal with him, make sure you kill every firearms enemies in sight first (or just use firearms damage reducing jewelry). Then try to corner him on a wall, so that your wide powerful combo can land the hit even if he sidestep. You can also wait for him to attack, then sidestep during guard yourself (using his own trick against him), and then combo him afterwards. His sakura attack also packs a lot of punch and cannot be guarded once you get hit by it. Pay very close attention when he is about to use his sakura attack. You really, really do not want to get hit by it. Kodo Yukimura ------------- Recurring boss on every character story mode. Joke boss. His combo will somehow stop after landing two hits, and his sakura attack can be guarded after first two hits. Just combo him to death. "Ultimate Fury" Kodo Yukimura ----------------------------- Final boss on every character Chronicle mode. Has a very, very powerful normal combo. Three hits from him are generally enough to take half of your health away in normal difficulty and above. He also will back dash against your attack quite a lot, then counter attack you after your attack miss. However, unlike any other boss battle, the battle against him is always 1v1, so without any interruption from enemy troops, the trick is to simply corner him into a wall, and combo away until he dies (since he can't back dash against your attack if you corner him into a wall). The good "wall" to use is the large in the middle of the map, stuck him there and combo him away until he die. His sakura attack is a large, aoe attack that cause a lot of damage, and very hard to guard against (or maybe unblockable), but the start-up of the attack is very, very slow. Making it obvious whenever he try to use it. When you see he is about to unleash his sakura attack. Get the heck away from him. Do not even bother try to guard. Just run far, far away, then come back, and attack him after he is done with his sakura attack. ------- Closing ------- Copyrighted December 2014, Clark Nguyen (blasster) Hosted only on Gamefaqs. If you have any question, feel free to use Gamefaqs meesage board.