------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Red Ninja Guide. PS2 NORMAL MODE COVERED (walkthrough applicable for XBOX version as well). Author = Dark Symphony Updates: 6/09/2005 - OK.. I kinda moved again, so it's not coming along as fast as i'd hoped. Either how, added LVL2 Walkthrough. And figured out that you initiate body dragging by just pressing square by itself....? Yipes. Also, it seems that the backflip you can do during lock on is INVINCIBLE!!!! And THAT is FRESH! 5/25/2005 - Updates to the "Features" section (enemy/boss notes etc.) In game guide started. 5/24/2005 - Initial forming and posting of this FAQ This updates notes: I just put up the initial shniznoz. SOmething has got in my way of actually having the game simultaneously running, so the walkthrough part will have to wait. Unfortunetaly. I'm just posting this to... see how to post it and whatnot... I reached the end of this game using no help, no input and no FAQ's or codes. Yes, i'm kind of bragging, yes I mention this later and probably numerous times, but it still explains why some of my boss strats and the like might be too hard, overtly complex or outdated. ============================= Legal Beagle :No one is allowed to copy and repost this work. Or alter and repost. Or any of that shniznoz. Not without my permission, at least. Basically, the short and sweet is.... you are only allowed to VIEW this FAQ. ONLY. Can't do anything else with it, unless you're just printing it and looking at it. And this FAQ is never to be posted anywhere I haven't given permission for it to be posted. Truth time: GAmeFAQ's recommended I put this paragraph in here. ============================= Contents: Section 1: Random BS Talk. Section 2: Notes regarding usage/contents/suggestions of this FAQ (read this, at least). Section 3: Introduction to Red Ninja. Section 4: The good and the bad of Red Ninja. Section 5: "What the frick can I do?"/Controls Section 6: Features/Abilities/Mechanics Section 7: The actual in-game helper. Section 7.1 A-F: Level 1 Section 7.2 A-H: Level 2 First of all.... email all questions of ANYTHING regarding this FAQ to: aceover9@hotmail.com AT any moment if I wasn't clear enough or if my instructions were too vague or whatever, please tell me. I hate crapy, vague FAQ's that confuse you, subsequently making you waste more time than you would have trying to do things blindly. IF YOU WANT TO USE THIS FAQ SOMEWHERE BESIDES WHERE I POSTED IT all I ask is for credit. I also ask that you let me know. Just send me an e-mail saying where it's going. You don't even need to wait for a response. I just hope you don't put it in a "horrible FAQ's" section or something. But i'm not to strict on this kinda crap, so I won't, like, take legal action or nothing if someone posts it somewhere without telling me. At least credit me (Dark Symphony). This guide was written alongside the PS2 version of the game. So all references to controls and whatnot are not as they should be for XBOX players. Howevert, the rest of the walkthrough should apply to the XBOX version just fine. USE CTRL+F! USE CTRL+F! USE CTRL+F! USE CTRL+F! USE CTRL+F! USE CTRL+F! USE CTRL+F! USE CTRL+F! USE CTRL+F! USE CTRL+F! I can't stress that enough. When looking for certain things, sometimes hitting ctrl+F and typing in keywords makes it easier to find. BEtter than just searching the FAQ blindly. ============================= Section 1: Random BS Talk Hurrahzors! I get the magnificently BS task of writing a Walthrough for this game. People can and WILL ask "why write an FAQ for such a horrible game?" Well, for those who care, here's the reason.... Red Ninja has the inner workings to be an awesomely fun game. In fact, once you've beaten it once and have a good idea of what you're doing and how to do it, the fun factor rises roughly 75%. Unfortunetaly, due to some glaring issues, many will not get to that point. And even if they do, the flaws will be too much for them to handle. Only those who are WAY into the aesthetics (which are rather nice) or story (which is rather... generic, but fun nonetheless) or those who are like me and are attracted to the potential this game has will really enjoy it. From what i've been hearing, it's becoming kind of hard to even find this game. And it hasn't even been out, what, 2 months? Either how, I won't really consider this an FAQ since it (As well as most FAQ's) is not a collection of answeres to Frequently Asked Questions. Howevert, most frequently asked questions will be answered within the guid/walkthrough/whatever. It might not seem like it, but I strongly encourage people to PLAY THIS GAME! With a good FAQ (as I hope this will be) beside you, this game can be rather fun. The biggest thing that kills it is confusion/not knowing what to do. Which is just fake difficulty and forced replay value. Two big no-no's. But seriously. If you've tried this game and gave up on it because it was more trouble than it's worth, in your opinion, try it agian with the help of this FAQ. ------------------------------ ------------------------------- Section 2: Notes regarding usage/contents/suggestions of this FAQ A: This is not an uber fancy or visually pleasing FAQ. It's my first one and I don't care to be flashy or anything. No slew of ASCII art and the like. I'll be messing with the format A LOT so at least try to hold off most comments on the format until i'm done covering the whole game. I'll be releasing this in sections since there are a CRAZY amount of people who are STILL stuck on parts in the game. Even after having it for a decent amount of time. I don't doubt that many people will be progressing through this game as this FAQ does. B: CHECK THE UPDATE DATES AT THE TOP OF THE FAQ! I don't deal with version numbers because I think they're needlessy confusing and stupid. I'll simply post a date in which I update the FAQ as well as a short breifing on what was added. I might forget to note some things I add, but oh well... Either how, I don't want people having to scan the whole FAQ or do any more than they should in order to see if something;s been added. You've probably wasted enough time being stuck in the game. THis FAQ is to help save time and frusturation... the two biggest killers of this games fun factor. C: This FAQ has one great thing and yet bad thing going for it - IT was written without the help of any FAQ or walkthrough. Any and everything in here was found out by me on my own. EVery trick, strat, location... everything. And i'll be writing this as I go through the game for my 2 1/3rd time, so I might find more things. I also might forget things. This ties in to the next section..... D: THIS IS NOT THE END ALL BE ALL END DEATH GUIDE FOR THIS GAME. Since it's all crap i've figured out on my own, there is still very much room for better strats, more locations of things, etc. etc. Considering my main goal is to at least get people through the game, there might be a lot of things like item locations and the like left out. Boss strats of mine can be very tedious and complex. THere's a good chance there are better ways. I will list as many methods as I can find. IF you want to submit some, feel free. Credit will be given. THe e-mail address is at thetop of the FAQ, but in case.... aceover9@hotmail.com E: PLAY THE GAME. FAQ's/Guide's can ruin games. They can give the game a sort of stop/start/stop/start type rhythm, which kills the overall effect. I'll be putting in two types of guides for each part. A quick runthrough and a more in depth one. This will be for levels. FOr boss battles, there will be a hints section and an in depth walkthrough (some of the hints will really give boss away, though). The reason I do this is some people just might want a little direction, rather than have the game played for them. F: IF you are reading this FAQ and are STILL lost, let me know. If many people are stuck at the same point whilest using this thing, that probably means I described it like criznap and need to re-write or add to it. G: To follow up to point E, I am NOT going to play the game for you. I am not going to make sure I find everything. I'm not going to tell you each and every way to approach each and every enemy to get a stealth kill. I'll let you figure the "No Duh" stuff on your own. I will describe the sections I have had trouble with and most any section someone e-mails me and tells me they are having trouble with. Sometimes, one person can figure something out no problem while another struggles and vice versa. Also, sometimes one might get a lucky guess in the right direction early on while another doesn't. H: Some areas are going to be HARD to describe. And I don't have any means (at this time) to provide images. A lot of times i'll use the beginning of the area as a reference point. IT might be a little goony, but sometimes it' the best way. I: I nitpick games way to much, since game development is a huge interest of mine. THus, this FAQ will almost simultaneously be a review of the game, with comments on when I think something is BS and how it could be better. In fact, I just might devote a whole section to it. I've talked extensively to someone on the RN message boards about this kind of thing, so maybe ill end up doing it. That's one thing I wouldn't mind random constructive criticism on. J: This is all from as much of a laymans point of view as possible. There are things i'll denote as unnecessarily hard or frusturating even though I got through them easily since I 1: Probably got lucky or 2: Had seem something done similarly in another game and that helped. I don't need e-mails saying 'THis game is easy and you just suck" and whatnot because if you went through this game no problem and say you had no trouble on your own, you are a liar. Red Ninja has many "trial and error" elements that became popular with N64 and PS1 games. TO a degree I think is a little to far, but still... no ones going to cruise through this game. If you did, be an Ace and go ahead and e-mail me the secret secret. K: I WILL NOTE EVERY OPPORTUNITY YOU CAN SAVE AT. If I miss one, let me know. I'll even try to warn you, when I note save points, of how much time you'd kinda want to have available before continuing in in the game. There are MANY times where you hit frusturating points that take a long time (boss battles, challenging jumping puzzles) yet were not given the opportunity to save right beforehand... L: This game can be gruesome at times. And the main character also doesn't wear much. But don't worry.. as much as all the mags raved about staring at her underwear all day, it's no big deal. It's not that distracting. All it does is make you feel weird when you try to adjust the camera and you get an underside shot. M: PLAY THROUGHT THE TUTORIAL! It's actually not bad. ----------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------ Section 3: Introduction to Red Ninja. Red Ninja is a... Ninja game... in which you control the ninja Kurenai. She's mad at things. She's mad at men. Why? Play the game to find out. She must be mad at men because Red Ninja has no regular female enemies I could spot. Red Ninja has NO UNLOCKABLE CONTENT! I know there are a lot of people who are playing this game just to see what they get (because there's no FAQ to tell them), well, while I recommend still playing the game, I think it would suck to play the game STRICTLY to see what you unlock and you get nothing. NOw... I could be wrong, but i've beaten it and have found nothing. Not even a frickin' stage select. Apart from the stage select, I don't think bonus content is a necessity for a good game. EIther how, Stealth is the name of this game. And, rightly so, you can get your pizza face pretty messed up in face to face combat. The damage you take is zany. AT least this promotes Stealth over face-to-face combat. All good in the hood until you get to a part in the game where you HAVE to face-to-face enemies... There is also a pretty good focus on platforming. Platforming and face-to-face combat are where this game is really creative. However, one of those aspects is done really well, while the other... I won't spoil the story bits, but you play as Kurenai, as i've said afore. Your arsenal consists of a "deadly wire" as der back of the box puts it. THere are numerous interesting applications for this wire, which is a good things. Various attatchments and the like. YOu also have a decent amount of ninja-eque moves to use to get around town. THen there are the ninja items. YOu have a decent selection, but will probably be using two of them primarily. You are graded at the end of levels. Time, Stealth Kills and all that jazz are accounted for. TO be honest, I haven't even tried to analyze the intricacies on that system. There's also an experience/leveling system that seems a bit tacked on. Depending on how you spit it through the wire, the wire will level up in different ways. Again, I haven't looked into it that in depth. But basically, the more you use one aspect of it, the stronger that aspect gets. IN short, never worry about it. You can also increase your life or ninja magic max by finding certain items. It encourages exploration, at least. Um... as i've said, end game is pretty blah. No bonus content (which is ok... not a super horrible thing). BUT, there is no level select. There's also, as far as I have seen, no way to start a new game or play any certain level with your end game stats, which is the only way they could really show you just how much you improve. I kinda think THAT was a huge mistake. The levels are pretty big and divided into sections. THe game is USUALLY pretty good about where you restart when you die. It's rare that you have to go back very far (which is AESOME) but when you do have to go back far.... the most inopportune times are chosen. You can sort of BS your way through a level. IF you get to a checkpoint (they're not shown or anything, so do go looing for actual "checkpoints") and you have low health, you can die and you'll restart at the checkpoint with full health, rather than waste a potion or something like that. How many times you die is recorded at the end of each level, but it seems to affect nothing. Good way to save healing items for when you actually have significant time at risk. At the beginning of each section, you're given a little fly-through of where you're trying to go. It kinda helps, but sometimes creates confusion... Boss Battles are a mixture of "guess and check" style (like COnker's Bad Fur Day... where enemies have a certain weakness and vulnerability you have to exploit numerous times) and "patter" style (like, I don't know... Devil may Cry where there's an obvious pattern they follow and you pretty much have to become a champ at navigating through that pattern taking as little damage as possible). Howevert, the bosses are not done as ingeniously as either of those games. WHile a boss might have a pattern or weakness, there are oft times variables that can very well make winning impossible, sometimes. Literally impossible. NOthing you can do but hope you have a better run of luck the next time. It's unfortunate, but human error exists, and too many variables can very much equal death. Some of the patters can also be a little TOO good. ANd made needlessly hard due to some of the more clunky aspects of the controls and game mechanics. Altogether, there are just some plain unenjoyable bosses in the game. Some are VERY hard, but you feel good about defeating them. Others are just... not fun, either way. Overall, I don't think anyone really "felt" this game. It was no one's brainchild. It's base is rather generic... focus on lots of gore, use the cheesy boss system many companies have been copying, throw in a "hot" chick and lots of fake difficulty to add "replay" value. Standard fair for a tossed-together-to-cash-in-on-a-genre game. Bah... all this crap can be experienced in game. Best to just start the next section.... ---------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------- Section 4: The good and the bad of Red Ninja. Kinda just a little heads up deal.... The good: -Innovative ideas -Innovative ways to dispatch enemies -Innovative ways to traverse areas -Inovative weapon -Great ideas as far as movement goes -Good focus on stealth -Challenging -Fair storyline (nothing groundbreaking, but it doesn't suck) -Decent intro sequence -Decent level design -Some nice "animations" as far as attacks, defeated enemies and the like. -Some interesting side functions to take advantage of (like in narrow areas with traps) -The lock-on system when setting up SK's (there's a slight delay while you size up the enemiy) -The Auto-hang feature (at times) -The game is good at making sure you take advantage of EVERY element. Save for blocking... -THe MUSIC! -The level LOOKS and ambience. Easily the BEST part of this game and one of the best of every game. THIS is what kept me playing and this is what really made the purchase worth it. The bad: -Movement is VERY clunky and inconsistent, which can lead to deaths -Evasion techniques are a tad too limited in face to face combat -Face to face combat options are limited -Not enough special stealth kill sequences -NOt enough basic options with the wire -Turning slows you down VERY considerable, enough to keep you from executing certain techniques -WAY too much "fake" difficulty (more on that) -The lock-on system in face-to-face combat (the delay is NOT a good thing in face-to-face) -The japanese characters look white (I know this is common, but it needs to become uncommon) -The Auto-hang feature (at times) "What is Fake Difficulty?" Fake difficulty is when a game focuses more on taking advantage of "Cheap" deaths, one hit kills, forcing a player to repeat a lot of things if they fail in one area, stupid AI partners, timers with too much at stake, bad camera angles, bad controls and other things that frusturate a player more than challenge them. Running around a boss for 20 minutes with no clue as to how to beat him is not challenging. Dieing because you couldn't see isn't challenging. Having no idea or hint as to where to go ins't challenging. Sending someone far back to area A because they couldn't beat area D in a game is not challenging (as it was area D that you couldn't beat. NOw you're just wasting my time). Dieing because there are random spurts of fire in a boss battle isn't challenging. And again, REPEATING THINGS ISN'T CHALLENGING. Movements that suck at doing what they're supposed to, thus putting me at a disadvantage, is not challenging. It's only frusturating. And that's why i'm even writing this FAQ. I want to keep people from being frusturated as much as I can. ------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------- Section 5: "What the frick can I do?"/Controls Let's be captain obvious... i'm decribing everything with the default controls (at least... I don't remember changing them). I have the instruction book in front of me and i'm going to kinda go in the order things are introduced there, yet i'll add some random notes not touched on in the instruction book. READ THE INSTRUCTION BOOK... please. It has a more formatted standard controls break down. BUt do read on for some insight on how to apply things. I expected a MUCH thicker instruction book, as I was thinking this game would have some MAD intricacies. I'm only outlining actual gameplay controls (menu's and crap i'm sure you cna figure out). CONTROLS: Left Analog Stick - Move Kurenai. This is analog, so the more you push, the faster she runs. D-Pad Left - Switch to Blade (Testsugen Attatchment) D-Pad Right - Switch To Fundo (Tetsugen Attatchment) Square - Attack/Interact/Activate/Seduction (When in Wall Hug with enemy nearby) L1 - BLock (I need to mess around with this more. Test it out some) L1+Square - NINJA TRICKS!!!! (see the Ninjitsu Gauge section) X - Jump/Ceiling Cling (while in narrow area during wall hug) Triangle/Circle - Use Item assigned to the button from the item screen. L2 (Can be held) - Crouch Walk/Stop swinging on wire-Rotate (with left analog stick)/Hide underwater L2 (near a wall) - Wall Hug/Un-Wall Hug L2+Square - Somersault (a short dive roll forward. Can ONLY be done forward. You MUST face the direction you want to roll... which I think is goony). Start+Select - Soft Reset Right Analog Stick - Move Camera R2 - First Person View R2 + Right Analog Stick - First Person View = Zoom In (must have a special item equipped) R1 Button - Lock On (Hold)/Reset Default Camera Position?!?!!? (when no enemies are present)/Break line (if you're hooked onto a hook point and standing on the ground). Square (When standing on a corpse) - Drag corpse (must not be locked on anyone). Lock-on funtions: Square - Throw Tetsugen/melee attack (if enemy is on close) MUST BE LOCKED-ON Square (While strafing) - Side jump+Tetsugen throw x - Jump x+Forward - Forward Jump towards target x (While Strafing) - Horrible side jump that actually brings you closer to the enemy x+Back - Backjump. (I just found out and verified that this backjump is INVINCIBLE!!!!!!!) Tetsugen Functions: Tap up/down on left analog - Aim Tetsugen at enemies head/feet (must be done WHILE the Wire is in flight) Square - Pull on the Tetsugen (after it has connected. Results different per blade) Square (right before Wire connects) - Instant Pull (Kurenai will yank the wire as soon as it connects) Used for SK's Select - Bring Up Inventory Menu Some notes on the controls: Movement is kinda goony. Turning while running slows you down CONSIDERABLY. Giving Kurenai more of a start-stop run than a smoove ninja run. Don't fret. It's nothing you're doing wrong. Blocking didn't seem worth much to me. I'll test this further. Seduction is CRAP. Rather than have some sort of Seduction meter to limit it, yet guarantee it, it's just kinda random. It works a lot at first (And not even that much) but it's pretty much just a way to get guys to walk into an SK, only with random results. There's no skill. No way to guanratee it or use any strat. Just a cheesy way to put in some sexual overtones. Goony. Use it only for the fun of it (what little there is). THey could have easily made it a more intricate thing than it is... I'll keep an eye out to see if there are some in game parts that require it for the SK. And no, there is no special Seduction SK animation. Ceiling cling is NOT clinging to the ceiling. Many are confused because there's an item that effects it and people wonder how to initiate the ceiling cling in the first place. By "Ceiling Cling" they basically mean "hang high in a narrow space." Basically, what it is is while in a wall hug (which is jerky enough to get into) and you're in a narrow area 9not too narrow) hit X and Kurenai will jump up and press her hands on one side and feet on the other, using that force to stay up there. THe butterflies explain it pretty well when the situation comes up for you to use it. The item system is stupid. You can't switch in realtime, so you HAVE to go to the item menu in game. THen you haveq to assign the buttons item functions. It's a horrible control scheme or items, as they could have easily implemented a way to cycle between items and still kept the item menu screen. L2 as a stealth button is stupid. It's not in the proper place. For such a primary function, it shouldn't be assigned to L2, which is kind of awkward to hit. Also, having to hit L2 to go into and again to get OUT OFF a wall hug is.... just goony. IT doesn't flow. Bad control choice there. In fact, many of the control placements are goony. I cna see an obvious effort to try to shy away from Tenchu's controls as much as possible, but the end result = not so good. As seen in the tutorial, YOU CAN WALL HUG TO GO THROUGH NARROW SPACES! You can also use it to walk across small ledges. ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT. So many people get stuck not knowing where to go because they didn't think to wall hug and walk across the ledge. I can't blame them, either. At times, it's hardly evident, if at all. And yes, you saw right. The lock on button IS the same as the "Reset Camera Position" button. This means that you CANNOT reset your Camera if there is an enemy nearby. Goony? Yes. To body drag, make sure you're on top of the corpse. Press square. I could swear you had to hold R1 while doing this, but it's been working for me with just Square. Speaking of the camera, it seems to alter between a free camera system and a flashy version of the camera angle system found in games like Devil May Cry and REsident Evil 1. There will be times where, no matter HOW you adjust the camera, it WILL go back to a predetermined position. No matter how horrid that position is. Fake difficulty. You can still move it manually, but it will not stay, sometimes. You can't even "hold" it there with gradual pressing of the Left Analog stick+Camera Angle button. Sorry to say, you're stuck doing some recom with the "First Person Perspective." Scout with that, first, then make your move. Almost forgot.... you CAN INDEED attack while hanging on the wire (more on the wire later). By holding L2, you can adjust your facing direction AND height. Adjusting your height downwards will (usually) cause Kurenai to turn upside down and descend that way, Blade ready in hand for the big strike. I actually never tried this with the Fundo equipped... And i've never found (and admittedly, never tried) to go for a kill in this method. As you probably know... fighting near ledges or in any confining area is boo boo in this game. And there's jack you can do about it. Kurenai has an auto-hang feature that is ALWAYS active (I think it should only be active when you're holding the stealth button). So, dropping down from a ledge is unnecessarily hard, which is frusturating... up until you avoid dieing because of it. Then it's cool. But yeah, you can't just... fall off a ledge. At least not by inching forward. It is great when it kicks in when you jump off a wall to a nearby ledge (she autofaces the ledge when she does it) but it gets annoying because it ALWAYS happens when you get near a ledge. THERE IS A SECRET ZANY MOVE! It's actually very powerful and can dispatch numerous enemies. You get it later in the game. It involves locking on to a guy for a long time and, if you maintain the right range, attacking. You'll do a secret move that murders the sin out of people's faces. They show it to you in-game. The command for execution is BS, though. VERY inconsistent. ----- MOVEMENT: As I said, movement is kind of goony. The biggest issue being turning (which reduces your speed BIG TYME). You CAN Wall run. They explain it well in the TUtorial. You have more control over it than you think. You can very well run in a perfect arch. DOn't think you can't descend or ascend during a wall run. Your jump changes while wall running, too. MEss around with it. You can FALL if you run into enemies. VERY stupid. If you run up to an enemy, YOU WILL STICK TO THEM. So, you cannot graze an enemy by running by or squeeze through You will STOP IN YOUR TRACKS. Getting hit slows you down and it takes a LONG time to be able to get your speed back up (it doesn't show it, but you seem to be dazed). I think you can shorten the time you're dazed by not moving first, then continuing running. You can throw the Tetsugen while moving. THrowing it while running to the side does a little side jump/Tetsugen throw. Problem is, you HAVE to do that particular throw. There is no regular running to the side tetsugen throw. Oddly enough, it's a better evasive side maneuvor than the actual side jump while locked on. While locked on, your movement, of course, changes. In this case, to crap. You become EXTREMELY limited, which murders you in face-to-face combat. You CANNOT let enemies get close because your evasive maneuvors don't evade. Jumping backwards while locked on works kinda well, but does you not much good when an enemy is charging (as they often are). Unless you do it at the last possible second. I just verifed that the backjump is INVINCIBLE! This makes a huge difference as you can use it to avoid many attacks. Doesn't do you much good against more than one enemy, though, as you'll likely get hit after your invincibility ends. Just don't forget you have that option. Jumping to the side actually brings you slightly in closer to the enemy, as well as to the side. So, if an enemy is in front of you, jumping to the side pretty much just makes you a sitting duck for whatever attack he throws out, as you'll pretty much jump right into him. Add to the fact that you canNOT graze an enemy and continue moving... Basically, you have to forget about many of the options the game supposedly gives you, or you'll end up frusturated THINKING you suck but really it's the fact that some of the functions are kinda off. Don't forget about your BACKJUMP! You must be at full running speed to wall run, and it only works on certain surfaces. You cna also triangle jump off of walls. Basically, if you jump towards a wall, you can jump off of that wall. IF you happen to reach another wall, you cna then jump off of that one. You can do it 3 times. Again, the tutorial is your friend. -THE TETSUGEN- Your weapon. It's functions usually activated by hitting square. From a distance, you will throw out the wire and it will latch on to the enemy. You can aim at 3 different locations on the enemy. The head/neck, torso and legs/feet. Different attatchments will have different follow up effects. THere are 3 different attatchements and, unfortunetaly, you only start out with one. You have to find the other two. And since there's no way to go back and redo levels, you never get to use newer functions on older levels. The wire, itself, can be used as a weapon in conjunction with the blade. Latching onto an enemy and running so the wire hits others does damage to those you hit. The wire can only take so much strain. NOt only is the enemy trying to break it, but hitting enemies with the wire weakens it until it breaks. Don't worry, there's no penalty aside from having to reattatch it to a target. As the wire gains levels, its durabilty increases slightly. There's a little red guage in that mess of guages in the lower left. It Indicates Tension. Tension is a good thing. You want to USUALLY keep as much Tension on the wire as possible when using it on enemies (as hitting other enemies with the wire will do more damage). I really can't think of another big use for tension... of course, I may have just forgotten something. Whilst you get 3 attatchments, only 2 can be used in combat. WHen you have both of those, using the left and right buttons on the D-Pad will switch between the two. There IS NO WRAP-AROUND. You are not cycling between the weapons. You MUST hit left to use one and right to use the other. WHich I think is kinda dumb, as hitting either direction should just switch the wire. The blade equipped is indicated in the lower left, next to your health bar. There'll be a small picture of whichever attatchment you're using. -Der Blade- The default attatchment. The one you start with. Olde Faithful. A lot of standard fare here. Throw it at guys and rip it out of them for damage. Being in close nets you a 3-hit combo when locked on. If not locked on, attacking with the Blade while running into close range will execute a 4-hit combo. Hitting Square after connecting with the blade will yank it out of the enemy.... no matter where you attatched it. Hitting square roughly 1/2 a second before the wire hits an enemy will yank it out IMMEDIETALY once it hits. THis is a technique you MUST know, for bosses will break any stagnant wire attatchments immedietaly. THis is also used for Long Distance Stealth Kills. Forget the in game information (given by the butterfly) of how to get a long distance stealth kill. They tell you you have to do it RIGHT before the wire hits the enemy, when you see some white flash. In all honesty, it's a LOT more forgiving. Just lock on, line yourself up, get in range, throw the wire, AIM TOWARDS THE HEAD and hit square roughly 1/2 a second (or less, but not AS it hits) before it hits the enemy. If he was unaware of your presence, HE'S DEAD???? -Der Hook- This thing is awesome. Yes, it's pretty much a grappling hook, like Tenchu. ANd yes, you DO have to equip it in one of your item slots, as this is used as an item, not an offensive weapon. You get this little deal slightly into the game. IT's great fun, but there's not a lot of freedom in where you attach it. Assign it to a button (Triangle or Circle) and hit the button. If there's a hook point close neough, it'll latch on. MEss around with it in Tutorial to get the.... hang... of it... (get it?) A little tip: A good way to scout where to go is to move around and mash the button this thing is assigned to. IT's VERY hard to see the hook points, but this will seek them out automatically and at least give you SOME idea of where to go. THe hook is a part of one of the bEST elements of the game. Swinging, combined with wall jumping and wall running and other little mini puzzles is GREAT fun. I just figured out how to hang upside down consistently. It seems it's activated by descending twice. So basically, the first time you hit Down on the analog stick, she'll descend normally. The second time, she'll turn upside down. -Der Fundo- Once you get this, the game becomes much more fun simply becaue now you have more choice as to how you dispatch enemies. The Fundo gives you some options that are a lot less messy but a lot more complex. And a lot of fun. Basic lock on function is to throw the fundo and then, if you please, tap square repeatedly to reel the enemy in. Kurenai will follow that up with an auto attack. The standard running and in-close combos work with the fundo as well, only the standard combo involves a lot more hits and can randomly daze an enemy for either a free hit (which oft happens, since it can happen while you're in the middle of a combo... whether you want it to or not) or an escape opportunity. If only there were some way to control getting these stuns, like hitting them at a certain time or hitting them mid move or SOMETHING. Random is less fun. EITHER how, the Fundo is very interesting. Most intersting part being the fact that YES, you can STILL SK with it. Though it seems much harder. However (and i'll have to verify) you can Stealth Kill someone no matter WHERE you attatch the wire. (Remember... they have to be unalerted and no one else can become alerted near them). You attatch, do an INSTANT PULL (Key requirement) and reel them in as normal. The auto attack that follows will one hit kill them. The enemy, while being dragged, oddly enough (though it makes sense from a gameplay point of view) does not go into a full alerted state. The manual says you cna reel them in by HOLDING Square. That would make a lot more sense. Oddly enough, i've always tapped it. I'll give that a try. BUT WAIT! There is MORE! The Fundo allows you to hang foo's. While the game tells you you can do it off of beams and the like, you can, indeed, hang people from just about anywhere. As long as you're on higher ground (but not up a slope) and there is room for you to jump down on the other side. SO, yes, you can indeed hang people on things like the corner of boxes and the like. For hanging, you must execute a successful snare of the Fundo around the enemy's neck (lock on, throw the wire, tap the Left Analog stick up to aim at the head/neck area). There needs to be enough tension for the wire to be rather taut (never really an issue) and it's better if they're relatively close to you (i'm pretty sure you can reel them in closer in this situation... the controls are kind of quirky - big surpise). AFter successfully snagging them and getting them clos, go ahead and jump off the other side. As long as the middle of the wire lays across a point higher than the enemy, you will be successful. Oh, and you CAN hang them by their feet or torse, but you CANNOT do the IK (Instant Kill) follow up that i'm going to describe. After hanging the enemy in any instance, you can hit square to release the wire. Now the enemy will struggle and eventually be no more. A process that takes a LONG time (a lot les of a long time if they hang by their neck). DOn't worry, it's still VERY entertaining. Now, you can proceed to beat the sin out of them to quicken the inevitable. THAT is hi-larious in itself (especially if you do it with the Fundo). But it still takes a long time for them to fade. And friends WILL cut them down... rarely (it's really nothing to worry about... I haven't actually even SEN it done, so it could be that I just did the initial hanging wrong...) SO it's not adviseable to do this in crowded areas unless you're ready to run away and wait. "So, what IS the most effective method?" you're probably not asking. Well, there is a way to score a quick IK. Complete the hanging as normal, but make sure you do it by the neck. When you jump down to actually hang them, DO NOT TAP SQUARE. Tapping the left analog stick downwards will invite Kurenai to tug on the wire, ending the existence of her now former foe. ANd yes, you can hesitate before tapping the analog stick.... for style. ------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------ Section 6: Features/Abilities/Mechanics A lot of this stuff has been touched on before, but still... The HUD (Heads Up Display) Just a fancy name for some of the in-game meters and stuff. In the lower left you'll find both the Tension Gauge and Tension Strength Gauge. They do exactly what they say... TENSION: Tension (touched on earlier). More Tension makes hitting enemies with the wire (while it's attatched to someone) more powerful. YOu also need Tension for certain abilities (hanging). TETSUGEN STRENGTH: The Tetsugen strength gauge shows how much strength the Tetsugen wire has left. When it is depleted, the wire breaks. This only applies to when it is attatched to things. Running the wire into enemies as well as enemies struggling against and attacking the wire lower it's strength. EQUIPPED TETSUGEN ATTATCHMENT: Do I need to explain what that means? HEALTH GAUGE: See above. NINJITSU GAUGE: This is basically the timer for how long your ninja abilities will last. I also believe it has to be full in order to actually use ninja trizzicks. Just like health, you can find items to increase the length of the bar, thus increasing the duration of abilities. I need to check, but if you indeed have to have a full gauge to use ninjitsu, then increasing the length can sometimes be an inconveninece. But you might as well do it anyway. I'll let you mess with the ninja tricks on your own. It's all standard fare, and explained decently in game. The gauge fills up as you kill people. The basic fuction is just a bullet time. Activated by hitting L1+Square, your enemies will all move in slow motion. Delicious, but overtused. RADAR: Known to many as the KI meter, this feature makes locating enemies a lot simpler than in games like Tenchu. I'm not saying this is a good thing, though. Enemies show up on your HUD (which is a little radar that depicts your surrounding area). You can see the direction they are facing, their movement patters and everything without ever having to actually see the enemy. (To be honest, I think only enemies you have or previously have locked on to should show up on the HUD. And there should be some indicator to give you a hint that there are enemies around. This way, you at least have to scout your surroundings, rather than just knowing where everyone is...). Either how, you can see enemies and where they are moving. Different colors reflect different levels of enemy awareness: Green: Completely Unaware. Attacking an enemy in close in this state will result in a Stealth Kill. Enemies will also not alert any other enemies when in this state. Yellow: Curious. Guards will move to wherever they saw what peaked their interest (as long is there are no hazards in the way). They WILL MOVE TO RIGHT WHERE THEY THOUGHT THEY SAW SOMETHING. Staying out of sight will not avoid confrontation. You must do so AND leave where you were. You cannot lure them with this method and attack them head on. They will go straight to the most alert mode. The only way you can use this for luring 9and it's a frickin' effective way) is to get them in the yellow, move from the spot they thought they saw you. Once they search that area, they will loose interst. Attack them ON THE WAY BACK to their post. That's a good way to kill someone away from his buddies. Of course, I just verified that you can, indeed, kill an enemy while he's in the yellow (an example will be given in the first level). HOwever, it's always slightly safer to wait until he's back in the green. BUt don't hesitste to off one in the yellow if it's a more plausible approach (if he's, like, walking past you and now has his back turned to you, investigating something). Orange: While this is a level lower than max, it often occurs after max alertness. This is when an enemy is sure you're around . Either when they have seen you and have lost sight of you or when they see a hanging/dispatched comrade. Basically, this is as alert as they can be without seeing you. Red: Bu-Bu-Bu-Bu-BUSTED! They see you. They are fighting you. SOmetimes, this can't be avoided (certain battles are automatically triggered by events)< so it's not always a bad thing. But when you can, avoid this. It is rather difficult to escape enemies in this game, and enemies DO call their buddies overt. And in later stages of the game, they SPAWN friends. SO even if one guy sees you, you could end up fighting 3. The radar will only be the appropriate color if the enemy is near enough. If you run far enough away, it will reflrect the alert status of enemies near that area, if any. If you run back up to a previously alerted enemy, the radar will change accordingly. LOCK-ON: Essential for easier SK's and better combat. When locked on, you basic functions change. You can now somersault forward or to the sides. And you can backflip backwards. THe side somersaults and backwards jump are your poor excuse for evasive maneuvors. When locked on, you will strafe arounf an enemy if you move to the side. If you throw the Tetsugen while strafing to the side, you will throw the Tetsugen while jumping to the side. IF you had enough speed, of course. Oddly enough, that's a MUCH better evasive maneuvor than the side roll. YOU CANNOT JUMP FORWARD WHILE LOCKED ON AND IN RANGE TO ATTACK! Goony as that sounds, it's true. No jumping forward, which makes air stealth kills while locked on pretty much impossible... and it sucks... JUMPING: "What the frick? Why, in eternity's sin, would he have a section of frickin' jumping?" Well, there are some specifics you MIGHT want to know... First, auto-hang. Any ledge you come near while jumping Kurenai will automatically hang on. Second, the "last step" as I call it. Kurenai doesn't actually jump immedietaly, it seems. Try it... go up on a roof, run to the edge as far as you can and jump. You'll note that even if you hit X right before you went over the edge, the jump won't register and no jump will come out. They should have either made jumps come out quicker or gave Kurenai the ability to take one step over a ledge, or maybe still be able to jump a split second after she runs off an edge. KEEP THIS IN MIND and remember to jump a tad earlier, but not too early. Also, Kurenai's jumps differ in different situations... at full running speed, she execute a forward flip that covers HUGE ground. That move will be your friend. Her jumps are different off walls and out of wall runs as well. WALL HUGGING: An off-shoot of stealth, this is basically the trademark stealth ability. Back to the wall. Can peak around corners, the usual. But i'm giving it it's own section because it has some not-so-obvious uses. For one, you can use it to squeeze between tight spaces. Also, you can use it to walk along REALLY thin ledges that you can't normally walk across. And finally, if you're wall-hugging in an area what's WIDTH is around Kurenai's HEIGHT (maybe a little wider than that... notice how I said the WIDTH of the area is around Kurenai's HEIGHT), you can press X to have Kurenai jump up, brace her hands against one wall and her feet against the other and hold herself above ground. This, for some reason, is called a Ceiling Cling. ITEMS: Your currently equipped (to the Triangle and Circle) items are shown in the top right corner. Hit Select to access your inventory menu to assign items. The game explains the items pretty well so I don't have to. Except for the "increase ceiling cling ability" item, which I already went into in the "controls" section. JOINT DISLOCATION: THis feature is in purely for aesthetic purposes. It's not really a skill so much as it is just another version of "going through a door." You might come across a small area and you'll be given an option to hit SQUARE to dislocate a joing and go through. It's something ninja's were said to do, so it's cool, but it really adds nothing to the game aside from a somewhat... unnerving sequence of her messing up her shoulder... maybe it's the sound effect... I could do without that. Either way, aside from the sound (which is just a personal irk of mine) it doesn't really take away from the game. Well.... it does make you have to watch/skip a cutscene to go from point A to point B sometimes. But either how, kudos for at least acknowledging it. STEALTH: HAHAHA! Oddly enough, I didn't use the correct method of Stealth Killing for my whole first run-through of the game. It's actually a LOT easier then I though. Basically, the instruction book says to WALK towards the enemy, then hold R1 without changing your speed (as running will alert the enemy if you are close enough). I totally missed the "hold R1" part. SO I was approaching every enemy by walking slowly up to them and hoping they didn't turn around. It's much easier. You can maneuvor around an enemy undetected as long as you are walking or crouch walking. But that's the hard way. The easy way is to lock on to the enemy. In this way, you can run freely and not alert him. Kurenai will run normally, but once she gets close enough to the enemy to where running alerts him, she goes into a "stealth run" that's different than the normal run. This run WILL NOT alert the enemy. This signifies two things. 1: You're ready to get in close for your SK (a Kanji appears over their head if you approach close them while locked on) and 2: You're ready to perform a Wire SK. And to be honest, there's rarely a time where a standard SK is a better choice than a wire SK.... but they are still fun. There aren't many SK animations. There IS an air one... To execute the powerfull wire SK, lock on to an unalerted enemy. Throw the wire and use the INSTANT PULL method (throw the wire, then tap square roughly 1/2 a second or less BEFORE it hits the enemy). SPecifics differ depending on the attatchment. For the Blade: You MUST aim at the enemies head. Do the instant pull method. Instant decapitated coffee. For the Fundo: I'm not sure if you HAVE to aim at the head. Do so, just in case. Also, use the instant pull method. Only you have to rapidly tap/hold square to reel them in. When they get close enough, Kurenai will do a special attack. She ALWAYS does this attack, stealth or not, but when done stealthily, it will kill in one shot. The best and quickest method to get around stealthily is the standard walk. But the crouch walk is better when you're nearer to enemies and are setting yourself up. It's also better when moving around areas with ledges and the like. Also, you're ducking (duh) so it's ideal for hiding behind objects or being less visible on higher ground. Crouch Walk+Auto Hang = you don't die by inching off of an edge... at least not often. WALL RUNNING: The tutorial, as i've said, shows you the basics of wall running. Just some notes... don't foget you have MAD control over your ascent and descent. You can totally up and go from running in a 10:00 direction to running in a 7:00 direction. You can begin a wall run from a jump, but, oddly enough, you'll have a significantly LESS amount of momentum. You execute a different type of jump from a wall run. Auto-hang will kick in if you ever jump near a ledge, so you can combine some pretty cool feats and get to some places by combining jumps and the wall run. To do the wall run, you MUST be running at full speed. THE STANDARD RUN: Kurenai's standard run is SUPPOSED to be rather fast. But, as said before, turning slows her down considerably... It also takes her a longer time to hit full speed if she has just been hit (something not noted in the instruction book). Wall running requires running at full speed. There are times where you're not given much ground to set up a wall run, yet you need to do one to continue. And if you line yourself up SLIGHTLY wrong and turn yourself SLIGHTLY to compensate, you will lose the little bit of speed you gathered and you will die a horrible death. Sounds like fun? It's a lot less fun when you don't know the specifics. This game really needed a sort of gauge that allowed you to burst into a run that gains speed quicker (maybe expend some Ninjitsu gauge? No.. it'd have to be something that slowly fills up overt time). This way you could ensure that you were ready to execute your maneuvors, but alas... You CANNOT interact with certain things by hitting square if you are even in a slight run. Ex: If there's a lever to pull, you have to stop and then pull the lever. Yeah, it's dumb. So much for ninja quickness. LEDGE HANGING: Jump towards a ledge/edge, whether it be of a box or a roof or whatever. Kurenai will hang on. She also will automatically hang on to a ledge if she gets near one. This means if you walk off a roof, she will automatically turn around and hang onto it. This has it's pluses and minuses. Good for avoiding accidental pitfalls. Bad for flow and all around fluid maneuvorability. While hanging on a ledge, you have some choices... If you hit X (jump), Kurenai will let go and drop. If the ledge has room to stand on, tapping up on the left analog stick will cause Kurenai to flip up onto the ledge. If there is nothing to stand on (like, if you're hanging on a horizontal piece of bamboo), tapping the left analog stick up will make her kind of jump up. If there is another ledge/something to grab onto above her, she will grab onto it. If not, she'll just end up right back where she started. You must use these functions to get places. Do not forget about them. Sometimes, a ledge will end before your destination and you will need to either tap up to jump upto the next one (which continues on further) or tap X to drop down to one below you to continue... CEILING CLING: Let me just repeat what I said earlier, in case you skipped down to here: Ceiling ling is NOT clinging to the ceiling. Many are confused because there's an item that effects it and people wonder how to initiate the ceiling cling in the first place. By "Ceiling Cling" they basically mean "hang high in a narrow space." Basically, what it is is while in a wall hug (which is jerky enough to get into) and you're in a narrow area 9not too narrow) hit X and Kurenai will jump up and press her hands on one side and feet on the other, using that force to stay up there. The butterflies explain it pretty well when the situation comes up for you to use it. Oh, and it only lasts for a limited amount of time. SEDUCTION: Otherwise knows as PUKESGIVING. Cheesy way to add some sexually suggestive content. It could have been implemented a LOT better, but it wasn't. Some notes.... -It's worthless. -If another guard sees you while you do it, he'll mess it up. -Failure results in an instant spotting of you. -Failure is random. There is no way to ensure it's success or failure. -Enemies vulnerable to it MIGHT be predetermined. THe only way to tell is to play the game 10 times. -Do it ONLY for fun. Not as a strat. "Wait, why use it? WHy take the chance when you can sneak up on the guy and kill him guaranteed?" That's exactly what I asked myself. There is no bonus, other than a potentially easy kill. Snorezville. There should have been some gauge or something... or it should consume ninjitsu, but be guaranteed... Oh yeah, the command is to hit Square while in Wall Hug mode (L2 next to a wall) and at a corner. Basically, be in a position to peek around a corner. WHen you are, hit square. NINJUTSU: Ok... so Ninjitsu seems a tad tacked on... at least they have some ingenious uses for it. The standard Ninjitsu (activated by holding L1 and pressing square when the gauge is full) is basically bulet-time. Your enemies are slowed down significantly. Slow enough where you can actually perform a run-up SK and pull it off before they get out of Yellow Alert (I just tested this). Kinda a fun diversion to mess around with. Also has GREAT uses when you're in regular combat. And as i've said before, sometimes you just can't avoid regular combat. BODY DRAGGING: Hide your mess. Do this by standing over a corpse (I don't think you can do it on one split by thee torso, and you DEFINATELY can't do it to hanged enemies... it WOULD be cool if you could cut them down and drag them), and pressing SQUARE. This is a SLOW maneuvor, so sometimes it's better just to get out of sight, let the nearby enemies see the body, go into alert and then go out of alert. If they see the body again, they will not react to it. Key note: Your camera auto-adjusts when you pick up a corpse, so your view, when you pick one up, is usually not in the direction you had it. Keep that in mind. ITEMS: The game tells you what they do, so i'll just give you some notes on SOME of the items... -Kunai: I use it to alert guards with the sound, drawing them out of their normal patrol pattern to set up easier kills. I usually do it when it seems I won't be able to get to one guy without alerting the others. -Smoke Bombs: Never used them, really. I'll try to mess with them on this play through. -Potions and Elixirs: Elixir = more powerful potion. TRY to save these for either when boss battles are at stake, or you have a lot of time at stake (read: if you die, you'll go bac a long way). There are times where even then, it's not wise to use one. You can only carry 9 of each, so if you're maxed in one and you find another and you're missing some health, feel free to use one if you're missing even a TINY amount of health in order to make room for the new one, while gaining some helath back. Two pluses there. In boss battles where you don't need the hook, feel free to equip BOTH potions and elixirs. That wa, you have both accessable and can use each one as you see fit. Just don't accidently use one when you meant to use the other. Never good. -Hisou: It's boo boo. Not nearly as impressive as the description behind it. It's just a higher jump with a different animation. Best use is if you fall somewhere and don't want to take the long way up. If the ledge isn't that high, you can use this to jump up to it. Never find to practical of a use for it beyond that. What I was hoping for was something to be used with the smoke bomb... you know how ninjas use smoke bombs and then are suddenly gone? Well, no ninja game has really accomplished that... It would have been cool if this was a HUGE jump so you could smoke bomb and be gone.. ah well... -Invisibility: I need to test this as well. I kinda don't see the point... any non-stealth movement will get you seen. It's got SOME uses, but not many. You can't use it for an easy sneak because once you stop moving slowly, it goes away. You can't use it to kill someone in a crowded area because you probably uninvis when you execute the SK. The best uses I can think of are for when (and i'll have to test this) 1: A lone enemy is directly facing you and you want to sneak up in his face, or 2: You want to sneak up on someone but don't enough time to do so without someone seeing you, only their patrol pattern doesn't always have you in their line of sight (so you can get past them while they normally would be able to see you and get in the clear for a alert-free SK). -Blowgun: Headshot kills aren't worth going for. Too much work for too little. -Amulet: Protects you from a dishonorable death. What is a dishonorable death? NO IDEA! It's never explained. BUt from what I gather, I think it's just when you die and are not flattened out and spread across the ground. In other words, when you die by any means other than falling in a pit ot something like that. NINJA BUTTERFLIES: Stand near these and hit Square. Can't do it while moving. They give you tips. Whoo. ENEMIES: The butter to the game's bread. A lot of the game is based, of course, around enemies. There are numerous types. I'll let you have the fun of figuring all the specifics out. After all, you don't want me to play the game for you... When there are enemy aspects of note, I will go over them in the actual walktrhough when those enemies come up. All the various levels of alertness are reviewed in the RADAR sub-section of section 6. Enemies in this game take advantage of numerou bad game mechanics... your clinky movement, the crappiness of your evasive maneuvors, your limited options up close... Enemies LOVE to charege forward. This also happens to be the hardest type of attack to deal with. Oft times, charges WILL break guards. If they graze you while you're moving, you WILL stop. And, charging or not, running into an enemy will sometimes cause you to trip. Whee. Enemies do MAD damage. which is good, because thatp romotes stealth. It also makes potions a LOT less useful... even early on. If an enemy attack/attack series does over 50% damage, you MUST use some sort of health potion if you want to live through the next attack (duh). In a perfect example of how realism does not always equal fun orgood gameplay, some enemies, when decapitated, will swing their weapons around as they fall. These attacks CAN hit and WILL hurt. And it's NOT fun if you're in the middle of a fierce melee (which sometimes can't be avoided). This can be avoided by stealth kills (as the enemy will not have drawn his weapon... which was a pretty slick concept, however..), but remember to keep your distance if you kill an enemy via decap. If you ask me, the idea is OK, but the swings do too much damage and there are too many hits to them, which can, sometimes, combo. After further testing, it seems enemies do the "Wild Swing" regardless of whether it's an SK or not. The only way to avoid it is to not decapitate them. IF an enemy THINKS he sees something (Yellow Status) he WILL investigate. He, if possible, will walk right up to where he thought he saw something. In a perfect example of how realism can sometimes equal better gameplay. IF an enemy sees and pursues you... that's a little different. At times, enemies will know exactly where you are (in fact, usually they do) regardless of whether you turned 16 corners out of their sight. Enemies stay alert for a long time... in my opinion, too long. The point of the game is to kill, preferably undetected. NOt sitting around holding L2 for long periods of time. Some say "that's realistic!" I say, no it's not. If you accidently walk out in front of something, he should pursue you until one of you dies, usually. BUt that would be boring. Thus why I think pursuit time could use a little cutting down. Occasionally, you might run across an enemy who was previously alerted running around. He will be running near you, but will not be alerted if he sees you (in fact, he'll oft times run right by you.. even running into you, sometimes). This is a free kill. The enemy has glitched out, trying to either return to his post or go away (as enemies spawned when you get spotted often do when you successfully escape). Go ahead and just run up to him and take him out. It's kinda fun intercepting a running guy. ALSO, you might find an enemy who does not move or change direction... even if they're facing the only way you can approach! These can be one of two things... 1: Sleeping enemies. They're usually in more random places (you know, not guarding exits and stuff). THey have their arms folded and their heads down. Treat them as blind guards (they can still hear and be awoken). 2: Mini-bosses. Some enemies, usually guarding exists, doors or who have keys, etc. are MUCH harder to SK (in fact, i'm not sure if some can even be SK'd). They're often put in positions where you pretty much have to approach them from the front. They are usually 2 to 3 (ro more) times stronger than the average enemy. Maybe a little more attack power, but common dispatching strats should do ze trick. Quick On The Draw. Some enemies are. In a brillinat move, and a clever way to keep the game from allowing SK's that shouldn't happen, many enemies will immedietaly draw their swords and swing out a knock down blow if you startle them from up close. SO, if you're creeping by a guy and get a little jumpy and run at him normally at the last second... even at the last split second, he will do this quick strike and floor you big tyme. One of the most awesome ideas in the game. Just something to keep in mind. Alert or not, standard attacks will NOT instant kill enemies. BOSSES: You lucky duckies are going to have something that no one has had in the almost two months this game has been out... help with bosses. Well, there is one FAQ out at this time, so I guess I should say IN DEPTH help with bosses. THe bosses in this game have made MANY players quit. They are a combination of "guess and check for weaknesses" as well as "pattern" style. However, weaknesses usually turn out to be small moments of vulnerability and patterns often tend to have variables that, due to human error, can make or break a boss fight. ALso, there are boss fights where one bad mistake CAN mean the end of the fight and the refighting of the boss all over again. ANd even when you know it's hopeless, there is no "restart section" option, so you kinda just have to job yourself out, if you want to save time. Which is never fun. Luckily, with the proper guidance, the bosses can be a lot easier. BUt there are some, I will tell you, that are just.... not fun and take a LONG time to beat. THis could be because I havne't found the TRUE way to beat them. Hopefully someone does. Other boss fights are very fun and the strats required to beat them are ingenious and well put together. THe best part about the bosses: They DO indeed test your skills with MANY functions in the game. Encouraging the player to, at least in these instances, take advantage of numerous game mecchanics (though not necesarily all in the same fight). It would have been TOO good if the game gave you any kind of hint on how to beat bosses, rather htan guess and check. Actually, some have slight hints. I, myself, will first list some hints to point you in the right direction to beating the boss. IF you still can't figure it out, the in depth breakdown will follow the hints. ========================================= ========================================= Section 7: The actual in-game helper. ---- Now comes the guide to the game. Some notes: 1: I WILL NOT break down the game movement by movement, enemy by enemy. If i'm giving you tips regarding one enemy, that doesn't mean others aren't around/in the way. I don't want to spoil much. This guide is to help you along. Not hold your hand. I want people to get a good grip on the game and how it works and be able to get through it. But I don't want people having to rely on an FAQ for every little thing. 2: I want this FAQ to remain as spoiler free as possible. WHich is why i'm not listing any rundowns or things at the beginning of each level walkthrough. I WILL give hints like "if you don't have much time at this point, quit" as the save points in this game are dealt out in kind of a goony fasion. 3: If I need to spoil something for you to live, I will. 4: Will try to note key item locations and various things I think you wouldn't want to miss. But you must search for all other items yourself. While i'll try to note the location of special/rare items, I might miss some. Feel free to let me know. 5: I will describe what you've just done at the beginning of each level walkthrough (and level section walkthrough if need be) in order to briefly allow readers to determine what levels/sections i'm talking about (as levels aren't really named specifically). However... 6: You mission will be noted on the map screen (hit select to open up the menu, in-game, and select map). So i'll kind of call the levels by their missions. At times, I will state the mission a little more vaguely, so as to avoid spoilers. 7: MESS AROUND IN THE TUTORIAL. I know, I know... Sometimes it seems "cool" to skip tutorials. Tutorials are for wussies, right? Well, this tutorial as one of the better ones. There are a lot of intricacies you could easily miss and end up wasting valuable time trying to pinpoint. Also, the TUtorial level is, oddly enough, one of the more fun levels. Strange, eh? 8: This game pinpoints your destination on your radar (head towards the silver X). It also gives you a quick fly through of the level via a cutscene. The game will, at times, point out where to go via cutscene. It's better than just blind guessing. 9: KILL ENEMIES! Even if you can easily get past one and continue. Some enemies drop goods, and extra stock NEVER hurts. Also, enemies will drop keys and crap that you need to advance. You don't want to spend hours searching for an exit or key you've had all along. 10: If you get super lost and can't really be maneuvored out of where you are by the guide, the best approach MIGHT be to head as far back to where you started as you can and follow the guide from there. 11: TRIANGLE skips cutscenes. Not too big of a deal... except one time. It also skips the guidance cutscenes that usually occur at the beginning of a section... 12: SAVE ALERT! I will put in obvious Save Alerts that should be easy to find while scrolling, without having to read (so you don't have to spoil the game while seeing how far the next save point is). 13: Some sections I will label "Self Explanatory." As in, you shouldn't need much help figuring out where to go. And some specifics of levelsI, as i've stated, will not get into. If you get stuck E-MAIL ME! I will try to post specifics as soon as I can (if I can't remember off hand). Keep in mind that I might have to play through a significant portion of the game to get there, though... 14: Jumping puzzles where failure results in a pitfall, or for many pits in general, i'll try to list how far back you'll go if you fall in one. Why? I don't know. Just seems like something people would like to know. 15: Um... try? If you can. I REALLY recommend at least TRYING a level/level section before referring to an FAQ. Some things don't take long to figure out. Of course, if you don't have the time or patience, by all means... 16: "Let sleeping dogs lie." Or something like that? Yeah... anyway, just a random "no-duh" tip... Kill the sleeping enemies last, if tehy're in an area with other enemies. If you get all your SK's like you're supposed to, you can lap upyour easy kills last, rather than risk trying to kill them while a guy who actually is doing his job well spots you. Of course, there are many situations where it doesn't really matter who you kill first. 17: USUALLY when I give directions, they are relative to what YOU, the player, see. And often, I will give directions relative to how you first came across them: Ex. If you run into an area and can go left or right (raltive to you) and I say go right and you go and handle your business there, if I say "now go back and take the left path," that usually means take the path that was to the left when you first had the choice to go left or right. Does that make sense? Now, there's a good chance I might mess up and not follow those guidelines, so if I ever get you lost, remember to e-mail me. 18: There are little symbols everywhere that kinda point to where you can go. Look for those if you're lost and don't want to resort to this FAQ yet... They look like Circles with Triangles on the inside and a small line sticking out of one of the tips of the triangle (usually the tip pointing in the direction you want to go). ========================================= SECTION 7.1 - Level 1 Walkthrough ========================================= Section 7.1A - Assassinate The Vassal ----------------------------------------- USE THE BUTTERFLIES! Oft times, they'll give you hints right as you'll need to apply them. DON'T FORGET TO KEEP TRACK OF YOUR SURROUNDINGS. Don't getl ost in this guide. Either how, If you head straight from where you start and then follow the stone path, you'll come to a part where the path divides. One going left and one going right. To your left, there is a small wooden wall (kee this in mind). If you follow the path to the right, you'll end up at a dead end, with a gate blocking your way. This is ok. An enemy, if you inch close enough to the gate (be careful) will think he sees something and begin to move. This is a good example of how enemies will respond when they think they see something. He will not come through the gate. He will come all the way around from the other direction (the direction where going left would have taken you). Since it's quite a long trip, take this time (once he thinks he has seen something... Yellow Level alert) to run back to where the path split and hide behind the wooden wall mentioned earlier (just a small wall sticking out from the side of a hill...). The enemy will walk on by and go investigate RIGHT where he thought he saw something. Take this time to lock on and practice whatever SK technique you wish. If you are going to attack him, do so before he investigates, is satisfied and turns back around to head back to his post. There's a good example of SK'ing, luring, how enemies respond to things and how to stay out of sight. This enemy also might drop something for you. Slightly up the left path will be two enemies talking. I don't know if they talk until disturbed or if they just talk for a certain amount of time, but experiment with your Kunai to see if you can break them up. You don't have to hit them (which will red alert them). Try throwing Kunai at objects or the ground nearby to break them up. To continue, proceed along the path in that direction. You will come to another split. Going to the right will take you to the other side of the gate.. the side the lured guard started on. THERE ARE GOOD HERE. There is a chest here. This is your introduction to chests. It's got a pretty boss item that protects you from ONE dishonorable death when equipped. Go back and take what would have been the path to the left (what is now the path straight ahead). There is a butterfly that introduces you to SEDUCTION. I believe the enemy you run into after that butterfly is a guaranteed seduction, so if you want, have fun with it. The guard before the last gate has a key. I can't remember if i've ever actually successfuly SK'd him. Head through the gate. When you reach the big gate, there's a small entrance door to theright of the big gate. It's not hard to find, but some people get confused, thinking they have to go through the big part of the gate. ********** ********** SAVE ALERT ********** ********** You are given an opportunity to save here. If only the option to save always occured in such increments. ---------------------------------------------- Section 7.1B - Assassinate The Vassal ---------------------------------------------- This area is easily navigated, so I won't go into much here. PRetty self explanatory. HOWEVERT, if you, from the gate you start at, head forward, take your first right (watch out for enemies) and then take a left (that's all you can take) you'll be facing a sleeping guard. He's USUALLY sleeping. At least everytime i've played. He'll be sleeping unless you have made enough ruckus to wake him. You can do all you want around him as long as you don't make noise. This is your introduction to sleeping enemies and also a good time to try to go for an air SK by going up on the roof behind him (relative to the direction he's facing), targetting him and then jumping off on top of him and hitting square. Big fun, yes? Just beyond him, in front of a wooden gate, is a pot. You can break this open for an item. So, if you see an object that stands out, don't hesitate to try and break it. This is your introduction to... breaking things to see if they have stuff in them. If you stand right where the sleeping guy was and face the direction he was facing, you'll see a difference fence up ahead. The only part worth noting, about this, is that if you go up to the fence and hit L2 to go into wall hug mode, you can walk between the small area between the fence and the house that would be to your right, if you are facing the fence. That's your intro to going through small areas like that. The best way to dispatch the guy in the archer tower is to get on the roof section next to the tower and, at an opportune time (when he's not facing you), run closer to him (staying on the roof) and use a distance SK. He usually drops an item. Beyond the archer tower, you will come across another choice. Continue to the big gate up ahead, or go down into the entrenched path. The entrenched path is optional but leads to an item. It's also a fun place to mess with wall jumping. The guard who patrols the area between the big gate and the entrance to the entrenched path (basically, the guy in front of the big gate) holds the key. Don't forget to pick it up. Again, enter through the small door on the right side of der gate. ---------------------------------------------- Section 7.1C - Assassinate The Vassal ---------------------------------------------- ---------------------- The Japanese Tea House ---------------------- Here's where my FAQ skillzorz will be put to work. This area can be tricky. The way my directions were acheived was by clearing out the first area of all enemies (so I can focus on directions only). I am only step-by-stepping the first two sections of this part becuse they can be kind of complicated. Don't forget to watch out for enemies! If you get lost (which you shouldn't... it's not THAT hard), go back as far as you can, find that spot in the FAQ and try following step by step. Remember, any problems, e-mail me. Another note... maybe it's the level design, but I always forget that you can get on top of the walls at the beginning of this area... Either how, from where you start, follow the path (made with stone). This will eventually lead you up to the porch of the house. But you can't just go in der front door. A little to the left of the stairs is a little passage you can duck into to go under the house. It shouldn't be hard to find... .thee's a butterfly making noise right next to it. Hold L2 to crouch and crouchwalk into the small tunnel vent dealio. (Notice the symbol on the ground aty the vents entrance. You might have noticed them before. These are little guidance symbols that sort of point you in the direction you want to go in to continue). ----------------------------- Inside The Japanese Tea House ----------------------------- Here's where it gets kinda (SSX) Tricky. And the reason i'm going into this much detail. Hop out of the little hole in the floor. Jump up the boxes and into the attic area. Right near you is a hole you can drop down into. Drop down. Continue out the only way you can go. Pass the door on your left. Pass the door on your right. You'll come to a part where you can go left or right. Go right. In that room facing the way you come in, there will be two stacks of boxes that lead up to different sections of the attic. Take the one on the right. Navigate through that section of the attic to find an item and a chest. Go back down where you came in. Go up the other set of boxes (what would have been leftwards when you entered that room). There's a smoke bomb up here. Navigate through, grab the smoke bomb, if you please, and then locate a hole in the ground to go in (make sure it's not the one you came up in). Drop down. (This drops you into the room that WOULD have been on your left had you taken a left instead of a right earlier...) In this same room you dropped down in, climb the set of boxes right near you and go up into the attic they lead in to. It SEEMS like you just came from here, but there are actually two holes in the rooms ceiling right next to each other. You dropped out of one and are going up the one right next to it. WHen you get up the attic, do NOT drop into the nearest hole. That's a dead-end room. Instead, go around to the other side of that mini wall you can see through (you can see the hole you want through the wall). Go down that hole. In this new room, climb up the boxes and go up into the ceiling. Navigate shortly through this section (it's not far) and find the hole in the ceiling. Jump through it. And that's the complicated part. Getting through the rest of this section is pretty straightforward. The guy in front of the gate, of course, has the gate key. Of course. *********** *********** SAVE ALERT! *********** *********** Man, I wish they continued this trend later in-game. ---------------------------------------------- Section 7.1D - Assassinate The Vassal ---------------------------------------------- ----------------- Theater Entrance ----------------- This section is VERY straightforward. Trickiest part is offing the guys on the road. Use Kunai (hit the ground near them) to get the attention of guys who are near each other (there are two gys facing each other talking). Kunai will make them forget their comversation and start routes, which makes them easier to pick off. Aside from that, just go towards the silver X. Standard fare. Guy in front of the gate has the key. He also is one of the ones who faces only one direction, so you'll have to use a less conventional method to take him out undetected. What worked for me was throwing a Kunai at the gate behind him. He turned around, only at Yellow Alert, which made him perfectly ripe for a lock on and distance SK. I had fun doing it, so I wrote it down... ---------------------------------------------- Section 7.1E - Assassinate The Vassal ---------------------------------------------- ----------------- Noh Theater Stage (Noh from Samurai Warriors is awesome...random note.) ----------------- Now you actually get to do what you came for. You have been given a blowgun with 6 shots. Wasting all 6 means you can't do the mission and thus fail. Make your shots count and all, but 6 should be more than enough. Successfully taking out the guy without being spotted is kinda tricky to figure out since one can't be sure who will see waht, if the guy on stage can see things, etc. etc. However, running doesn't really alert anyone beyond the two guys patrolling the outer edges of the little wall units they have set up. Basically, relative to the direction you were facing when you started, kill the guy patrolling to your left. Careful not to be seen. And DON'T FORGET TO EQUIP THE BLOWGUN. You must shoot him in First Person (R2) mode and hit him in the back of the head. Once that is done, creep alongside the wall he was patrolling next to. The wall is made up of 3 panels with some space between each one. You're going to have to shoot the vassal through one of these spaces. Particularly, between the crack between the second and third wall units, which is also the third crack you go past when you go down that side (that's including the corner). Basically, the opening closest to the vassal. This nets you a NICE shot. Line up and let it fly. Now, you'll have to fight off all the men who surrounded the vassal. This is your first forced face-to-face and it's not hard. Standard strats... latch on to someone, run the wire into other people. I usually just latch and run the wire until it breaks, repeat until only two guys are left, then I start manually pulling it out. I know it seems that using the side-jumping version of throwing the wire to latch on is the best idea, but it's really not. Running backwards and latching on in place will keep you from jumping into enemies, as i've said before... your evasive moves aren't very evasive. ---------------------------------------------- Section 7.1F - Assassinate(d) The Vassal ---------------------------------------------- ==================================== BOSS FIGHT - Kabuki Jones/Noh Master ==================================== And no savepoint.... hahaha. TIPS (See if these will help before reading the play by play): 1: Stop locking on if you need distance. 2: Use the instant pull. 3: He lags after attacks. 4: He will create new clones when both of his clones are defeated. 5: The side-jump wire attack is decently effective in this battle. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Okay.. so his name isn't Kabuki Jones.. this guy isn't that hard once you figure out his trick.s If you get good enough at fighting him, some might want to let themselves be taken out so they can restart the battle and fight him without using any potions or elixirs, which saves on inventory (as, when you die, you get all the potions and elixirs back that you had before the checkpoint you started at). Either how, this is where your side-jumping wire throw comes in handy. Use it to dodge his attacks and latch on to him. He is most vulnerable after whiffing/executing an attack. You MUST use the instant pull for maximum effectiveness. HE's got a few attacks. I'll let you see what those are. But one of note is a jumping forward slash. This attack TOTALLY takes advantage of the bad game mechanics, as the horrible evasive maneuvors you have get eaten up by this move. It's best to sometimes stop locking on for a bit to get yourself some distance and positioning that matters. That move gives this guy mad oki. (Truth Time: Oki = Okizeme. A term used by Tekken/Fighting Game players when referring to effectiveness regarding messing people up as they try to get up. Because RN has no good get up techs, you can get beat up pretty bad just tyring to get up and get some space). The guy, at first, is very slow. Some jumping patterns you can dealwith because of lock-on. And some SLOW to start up attacks. Which become an issue a bit later because... HE MAKES CLONES OF HIMSELF! Two, to be precise. Now, even his slow attacks are a big danger because you have to deal with 3 of them. And on top of that, all 3 guys can do the jumping forward swing of doom. And the oki just got 10 times worse. IN fact, TRY YOUR HARDEST not to get knocked down. You have to try to combat him as much as you can as if there was one. Kill both clones and he makes more. However.... note you have to kill BOTH clones. Kill one, and he will wait until you kill the other. THerefore, its better to just kill one clone and fight him when there's only two. THat's MUCH easier to deal with. THere's no point in trying to shave off clones and attack him as he seems to immediately form new ones when you kill the old ones. The tricky part is making sure you only kill ONE clone, as he and his clones, of course, look alike. The clones, however, are SLIGHTLY darker than he, if that helps... And it takes one hits to take out a clone, so be careful. You know THAT WAS A CLONE! Try and target the boss. The boss takes less damage during his second half and also becomes much more strict when it comes to vulnerability. Usually being vulnerable right after attacking or just before. But not during, in most cases. So you have to pick your shots, which is actually a lot more fun. With that, you should have him down and out a lot quicker than I did the first time I fought him. And with that ends Level 1. Hurrah! *********** *********** SAVE ALERT! *********** *********** ========================================= SECTION 7.2 - Level 2 Walkthrough ========================================= Section 7.2A - Steal The Blueprints ----------------------------------------- The Abandoned Village Alright, then, here you'll start to see colored rice that marks where you are supposed to go. It seems that the rice bin this particular area is just telling you a decent way to go through the level rather stealthily. Because your destination is at the end of the big, huge, obvious path in front of you. It only gets tricky when you have to actually get underground. So do your thing until you get to the little cave with the wooden elevator. To..... get down (get funky)... you have to pull the lever that is in front of the wooden gate that blocks the elevator. This lever removes a cover on top of the actual part you ride on on the other side of the fence... but only for a limited time. So you have to be kinda quick. Pull the lever, get to the other side of the fence (I just wall jump on the side of the cave and over the fence, It's pretty simple to get over) and then stand on the elevator. When enough time passes for everything to reset, the cover will begin to close and the elevator will decend. Woo-ha. *********** *********** SAVE ALERT! *********** *********** ----------------------------------------- Section 7.2B - Steal The Blueprints ----------------------------------------- Mining Gallery And here we go. Time for the proverbial "azelike" section. There are quite a few of these, so writing this and keeping you from being lost is going to be kinda tricky. If I refer to your map, that means i'm referrin to the... map. Derf. Don't forget, find it by pressing SELECT and selecting "MAP." Head on forward from the elevator. You'll come to a spot where you have an option to turn left, granted you're facing the direction you're coming from. Do not take the turn. Instead, continue straight. You'll come to a spot where you'll have to shimmy along some boards to get across a gorge (as hinted by the mini cutscene... hints... I wish this game had taken notes from it's own notes in the later stages). Oddly enough, you don't even NEED to do the shimmying thing as you can just run down into the gorge and bust out some mad wall jumping skillz on the opposite wall and make it to the ledge on the other side. Which is more fun. But do it either way. Go down the steps and you'll FINALLY get your hook, so the jumping puzzles can be a lot more interesting (one of the better parts of the game). You'll also notice there's a potion on the other side of the gate and you can't get to it. I'm not sure i'f i'll end up guiding you to it. It's just one potoin, either how... Anyhow, make your way back up der stairs, across the gorge deal and back to the path you passed earlier (was on your left going in, should be on your right coming out). You'll notice, on your way, a butterfly in front of the mini-gorge you were supposed to shimmy across. This introduces you to your hook. Equip that crap to your TRIANGLE or CIRCLE button and, dude... just leave it there. You might as well just pretend you only have one item slot, because it's impractical to keep equipping and de-equipping that thing. For those that care (all zero of you), I keep mine on triangle. Note: As said before, feel free to de-equip your hook in boss fights where you might want to have both potions and elixirs available. Anyhow, back on the trackmaster, Use your hook to go across the gorge and go back to that turn you passed earlier (as said before). Take the turn this time, of course. You'll come to ANOTHER mini-gorge. And AGAIN, you can just go in it and use the wall jump at the other side. But go ahead and use the hook to get across. You'll notice by now that hook points are PREDETERMINED. Good and bad thing. Bad because that's less freedom. Good because you can spam whatever button you have your hook set to when you are lost or confused to see if there are any hook points around you didn't notice. And if there are, that usually means that's where you're supposed to go. ALways a plus. Anyhow, now that you're across THAT mini-gorge, go forward and eventually up the stairs. NOTE THE GATE THAT IS NEAR THE STAIRS. It's wooden with an X shape on it and you probably killed an enemy that was right in front of it. When you get up the stairs, you're in a little contruction like area where you can jump on top of some stuff to get up above and continue. Before doing that, search the beams in the back of this little mini area for a chest that contains an item that increases your ninjutsu. Hoorayzorz! After obtaining that, go back to the spot right up the stairs and jump on that.. rectangle-esque thing and then up through the roof to the next level. Go towards the ledge that would have you facing the stairs and use your hook to swing across to the little area with the lever on it. Pull the lever. This opens the gate you noted earlier (which you're pretty much standing on top of). So, you can either drop down, turn around and head through, or swing back across and pretty much go down the way you came up. Your chizzoice. Dropping down results on ZERO damage, so there is no penalty for taking that route. Anyhow, go through the gate. You'll come up to a broken bridge and a pit. Riht where you're standing at this point is where you start if you fall in this particular pit: THE LONG WAY: Run-jump from one side of this bridge over the gap and to the other. Shimmy across the line of wood you come across and then drop down to the next line and shimmy in the other direction. Drop down and then turn and face the bridge gap you just jumped over. There's a cutscene that will show you what to do. Pretty much, use the hook. It will automatically grab on to a little slab of wood hanging down from the side of the bridge you started on. Swong across to the big cave opening. THE SHORT WAY: Ok, you just used the lever to open the gate and you just went through the gate. You come up to a broken bridge. THERE IS A HOOK POINT RIGHT BENEATH YOU on the side of the bridge you start on. Feel free to just drop down and spam the hook button to latch on. Hold L2 to adjust yourself. Face yourself towards the big cave opening (not the small thin ledge). Give yourself enough line to swing and make sure you're all lined up. Swing away. Ok. So now you're in the big cave opening. Head along the path. You'll come out into a room, but you'll be in the rafters, so don't worry about the fact that your radar is showing there are a bunch of enemies around. You're above them. Proceed to deal with them as you will. There is a cutscene showing you the lever you need to get to. It also shows you a rock above a guy guarding a lever. THe rock serves one purpose... you cannot tug it onto the guy or anything. You traverse to it along the rafters, latch onto it, walk off the beams (so your hanging in the air) and then hold L2 and lower yourself close to the guy and then swing at him using SQUARE. This results in an IK (instant kill). It's fun and there's really no other practical time you'll use this technique. However, there are other ways to SK this guy. To the left of the guy guarding the lever is a little sectioned off part. It's hard to explain, but you'll know it when you see it. You can duck in here to hide from him (do not make noise! Use the Crouch Walk). You'll also see that the potion you find in here is the one you saw earlier. Ha! We did find it! This is also a good spot to set up the SK for the guy guarding the lever. Pull der lever and go through the big gate that opened in the middle of the room. On that path, you can either take a sharp turn left or a slight turn right. The right turn (the more obvious one) leads to an item. And many peole get lost here because they didn't see the path to the left. Grab the item and then take the left path. On the left path, you'll come to a room with a fireplace on your left. This leads nowhere. Only use is the item in it. Continue forward. ----------------------------------------- Section 7.2C - Steal The Blueprints ----------------------------------------- Abandoned mine This part's only problem is if you fall down somewhere you're not supposed to, you can have a hard time getting back up, and it's very complicated for me to explain in writing. Either how, here', you're going to kinda circle your way around this room. Head forward and swing across to the platform in front of you and grab the oil pot. Wall hug and walk across the beam to the next platform (which would have been to your left after swinging). Again, wall hug and walk along the wall to the next platform. (Let me get off track for on moment, now). IF YOU HAPPEND TO FALL in this area, might as well take advantage and grab the items down at the bottom. There's a little hall you can go through that leads to an outside area with some enemies in it. This leads nowhere. Kill them if you please. In order to get you back up, i'll have to direct you as if you've went outside, killed the enemies, and are coming back in to the shaft area. Go through the little hall back into the shaft area. Directly to your left will be a platform. Get onto it. NOw slightly to your right (if you're still facing left relative to when you started) will be another platform. Jump on to that. Now, jump off the wall closest to you and direct yourself to the right to grab on the ledge that was above you when you got on this last platform. This is where you got the oil pot, so follow the directions in the above paragraph from there. IF YOU DIDNn'T FALL, you've just done your second wall-hug shimmy. To your right is some green colored rice on the groun directing you to the path to your right. Head down this path to the outside area (top floor). A butterfly will introduce you to "Continuous Swinging." Swing across to the platform in the distance. If you happen to fall, follow the instructions in the above paragraph until you get back to where you were. Once you've swung across, follow the path along until you get to the area with the roof over it. In order to continue, you must wall jump on the wall with the grated wood on the ground next to it. At the part of the wall way in the back right corner. Once you get up, you'll see a little mechanism on the ground, which turns out to be a broken lever. Nothing you can do with it now... Turn left and go forth. You'll come to a part where you can go either left or right. Left takes you to a wall with a board on it. Wall run up the board and follow the path until you come to the lever handle you need. Head back. Taking the path that would have been to the right leads you to... wait for it.... Jack Crap. Head back to the mechanism in the ground and stuff will happen. Go through the newly opened path. The next part is rather self explanatory, but i'll write it out anyway.... After going through the gate, turn right as soon as you can and continue forward until you get to the stairs to the left. Go up the stairs and go to your left. You must jump forward and WALL JUMP off the wall to your right to get enough height and distance to reach the hook point you need (as hinted by the butterfly and cutscene). There are other ways to get to it, though. Not hard to figure out. Anyway, latch on to the first hook point, make sure you have enough slack so you can swing far enough to the next one. Swing to the next hook point and then swing onto the platform. Now you can fall down to an area under all this. And still ive. IF you fasll into the parts where there is water, you die and start back as if you had just pulled the lever. If you just fell down to the floor below, here's how to get back up, since it confuses some people... Locate the wooden beam that has the white symbol on it. To the right of that, jump and grab onto the beam. Pull yourself up and then, the tricky part, jump SLIGHTLY backwards (so you don't hit your head on the ceiling) and then steer yourself forward to grab onto the ledge. Head back up to the aforementioned stairs and continue from there. The only reason you'd want to go down there is for a couple of items. ANYWAY, you've just swung onto the platform. Continue forward. Guess what? *********** *********** SAVE ALERT! *********** *********** ----------------------------------------- Section 7.2D - Steal The Blueprints ----------------------------------------- Canyon Rapids Here you get a good chacne to see some of the good level design in the game. This part's rather easy to figure out. You can either head across the bridge you come to or take the sneaky way by going dow the path, grabbing onto the side of the bridge and hand overt handing it. Your choice. Continue on the path. When you get to the houses with the rope between them, take the advice of the cutscene. You're going to have to grab onto the rope and hand overt had that. Luckily, Kurenai is a speed beast when she does it. It's kinda fun figuring out how to get across unspotted. Go to the middle part, detatch from the rope, work your way around the awkward boxes and re-grab the rope and continue. Falling in the water here mean death. You'll start at a spot right before the houses. NOt much time lost. You do have the option, while on the ropes, to drop down to the platforms below. Try to drop ON the platform. I tried a few times to just drop and grab the rope hanging below but she kept losing her grip. It might work, but it never has for me. A good spot to drop is right as you get to the platform with the boxes (on the top set of ropes. Not the bottom set). Drop down to land on the platform. Grab the rope above you and swing across. The point of this is simply a sneaky way to get across. Either way will get you there. On the other side, just follow the path. The path wraps right around the mountain and is filled with enemies. You will be shown a little cutscene pointing you to an alternate path. The point of the path? A way to bypass all the enemies. Getting to the path is harder than any battle you'll have with them, but if you want to get to it, just go the way the cutscene says. Jump up onto the litte part sticking out from the brick wall, try to build up a wall run in the little space you're given (you can try to get more speed by jumping from the roof onto that spot and continue with that extra momentum). The key to making it is to get your wall run adjusted quickly. Wall run part of the way, you can jump the last bit and trry to either land on the little bit of ground or grab on to the side of it. The rest you can just wire across. Hooray for needless work! Either how, whether you do that or just take the easier and more interesting path full of enemies, you'll come across a part where you'll have to go over a gorge to the other side in order to proceed. The bridge is out. Run to the edge of the ground where the bridge should be and hook away to grab on to the... whatever.... above the gorge. Swing away. Falling in here will take you all the way back to before you crossed the first gorge (before the huts with the rope between them). ----------------------------------------- Section 7.2E - Steal The Blueprints ----------------------------------------- Mining Upper Level OK. Things can be a bit mazelike, here. Note where you are and remember. Because just in case things get confusing, or if I get an e-mail stating that someone couldn't understand the directions, i'm going to sometimes reference a room by giving directions on how to get there from your STARTING POINT. I'll do this througout the FAQ whenever need be. Either how, pay close attention as this next part can be rather confusing. Head forward. Take your first left and head into the room with the big stack of boxes in the middle. Pull the lever in the corner. Turn around and go back into the hall and go straight from where you are as far as you can into a room with a small stack of boxes in the middle, slightly higher than you. Pull the lever in the corner. To the left of the lever, in the other corner, next to the wall of boxes, is a stack of two dark brown boxes. Break those to reveal a narrow passage. Wall hug and walk in the narrow space to the othert side. You're not in an area with a stack of boxes in an L shape (if you're looking from above) in the middle of the room. In one corner is a lever. Pull it. In the corner diagonally/opposite of that lever is a little piece of area jutting from the wall with a ladder on it. Climb up and pull that lever as well. Head out from the gate you just opened and take a right and WATCH YOUR STEP. You'll come to an area where spikes come jutting out of the wall and speed runners will run right into them and suffer roughly 85% damage. You can stagger your movements to slowly work your way through, but thanks to my writing this FAQ, I actually tried something different this time around and wall-hugged. And it works. So just wall-hug (on the while that the spikes don't come out of... derf...) and easily walk across and have fun getting through easier than I did when I played the first time. I know. I'm dumb. Anyway, when you get out of the hall and into the open, you can go right or left. Left leads you to an edge. In the distance to the right you can see some ground. You can't get there. Not this way, at least. For the sake of this FAQ, I spent a decent amount of time trying every method. I might have just missed the actual way, but I didn't find it. And dying in this area takes you to back before the spikes. You're going to have to go to the right (from where you exited the tunnel). A cutscene will happen demonstrating a way to get around people in a non-violent fashion. Violent blokes will probably ignore this. Of note here is the fact that the beams you can hook on here will break after a certain amount of time. This is the first time you run into this, as far as I recall... Personal note... areas like these in this game are great. Because you can wall run practically anywhere and the ground isn't too tricky, it really lets you have fun and freedom with the game mechanics. Either how, make your way around until you end up back in the tunnels and, also, back in the vicinity of a trap. This time, the spikes'll get you no matter how you move. There's a little raised area on the ground near the spikes. Standing on it stops the trap, but stepping off of it will make them start up again. Obviously, the button needs to be held down and as you figured out because it's so obvous, you can drag an enemy corpse over the button to keep it pressed down. Make your way through and you'll end up back outsie. First things first, go to your right and pull the lever. People always miss that and wonder how to open the gate you're going to come upon. I forget every time I get to this part. To your left is a big wall. You'll see a white symbol on it (near the red flag next to it) indicating it's a key to how to proceed. Durf... Look up above you and locate the beam thingy hanging out from the wall that you're going to wall run on. Wall run up diagnally towards the beam, jump off and wire the beam to hang from it. Position yourself and swing towards and subsequently jump onto the platform in front of you. To get to the platform across the way, you're going to have to hang on the big board jutting on the wall between the platforms and hand overt hand it. Head on down through the gate you've already opened. *********** *********** SAVE ALERT! *********** *********** ----------------------------------------- Section 7.2F - Steal The Blueprints ----------------------------------------- Suspension Bridge This first part isn't as complicated as it seems. Head down the path and crouch walk on the series of beams and boards over the gorge. You don't HAVE to crouch walk, but it's safer. Auto-hang should save yu from any slip ups. There is a swinging point under the platform on the othe rside right in the middle so your goal is to pretty much get as far towards the other side as you can, latch on and pull yourself up. Continue on through all the obvious to figure out stuff until you come up to a part where there's a bunch of spikes coming out of the ground and an enemy in the distance. A few things have occured when i've came here. Sometimes, the enemy is glitched. He will ALWAYS be hostile and thus, killing him and stopping the trap (by pulling the lever in front of it) is tricky. Pulling the lever stops the trap and opens the gate behind the guy but it either can't be done in combat or can't be done until he's dead. I remember doing it while he was alive so it must be the first. If he's always alert, wall-run on the right wall overt the spikes and fight him in that horridly enclosed area with the bad camera angles. Be careful. The spikes murder your face off. Don't have to worry about his helpers he calls for because they'll get eaten up by der spikes. If he's not glitched, still, wall run to his right. Quickly lock-on and stalth kill or distance kill him. Once he's dead, wall run back on that same wall and pull the lever and continue. You'll come to a T intersection. Path to the left takes you to a bridge that's out. Some people are temtped to fall down close to the side they're on to see if they can skip ahead. That will only take you back. Back to the part with the series of beams and planks you had to crouch walk on. As the symbol on the wall you see when you get to the T intersection says, you have to go through the right. This part can be kinda hard for those not familiar with wall-running. There is nothing I can do to help you. It's obvious what to do... wall run to each next platform. I have done it one one continuous motion, without stopping, but it took numerous tries (took me one on this playthrough...). Luckily and awesomely, falling here takes you back to the T intersection which, as you know, is not far back at all. I love it when games allow you to learn how to beat obstacles, rather than make you spend most of your time getting back to that obstacle... To avoid the spikes, you'll have to wall run above them. I have been lucky and had the spikes knock me out of a wall run and onto the platform i was going for, due to momentum. And you can stealth kill the guy at the end of the series of wall jumps. It's kinda tricky. Done it ONCE. Continue on. You'll come to the part of this level that most people who get lost are stuck on. In this ae, your goal is to lower the bridge so you can get across. Head to your right. There is a solid patch of wall on the side of the mountain, over the edge. That's right.. wall run on that. Continue ahead till you get to der big rock. Wall hug and squeeze through the narrow passage. Head onward and down the slope and pull the lever. Now go back the way you came. You don't have to squeeze past the rock this time. Just run over the top of it, wall run on that same patch of brick and cross the bridge. Falling here takes you right to the beginning of this area. Which is awesome. What's not so awesome is the angle at which you have to jupm onto the wall. Prepare to die due to the faults of the game mechanics. Wall running on a wall to the side of you is kinda goonyin this game. And you need to do it here. There's really not plausible way to line up a good run to the wall. Especially on the way back. Anyhow, once you've done that, go across the bridge (duh). *********** *********** SAVE ALERT! *********** *********** ----------------------------------------- Section 7.2G - Meet Chiyome And Akemi ----------------------------------------- Underground Cavern Swing across this first edge. If you're fast enough, you can SK the enemy you run across once you get to the other side. Head on and you'll come to a wall with spikes coming out of it. You'll have to time your wall run for when the spikes are retracted and then, after wall running, latch onto the hook point above and swing forward. The spike here often knock you forward far enough to land on the platform you want if you get hit while latched on with the wire. Falling here takes you back to the beginning of the area. Not too far... until you reach the later parts of this area. The next danger you come to is an edge and a all with some spikes coming out of it. It's pretty easy to traverse. Did it on accident first try. you merely have to time a swing past the spikes while they're retracted. It's best to wait for the spikes to start retracting, jump forward, latch on and swing forward with that momentum (don't wait and try to build up more momentum) and jump to the other side. once you do, quicky duck into a little space in the wall to your left to avoid detection. Continue on and wall run across the next gap. After this, you'll come up to an edge and a place to swing from. In the near distance, you'll see both a platform and some ground below the platform. Just go for the ground. You can't get to the platform from here. I tried. Once on the ground, move forward. You'll be shown a cutscene of where to go. It's pretty much telling you to use wall run to get to a platform. In case you missed it, you are to wall run pretty much above the torch/lantern that's against the wall to the platform that's above and to the right of it (use R2 to look up to see where you're trying to get to if you missed it in der cutscene). Once you get up there, turn back and face the way you came. Hook up and swing to the platform you see. Now, again, turn 180 degrees and face the othert direction. Again, hook up. Raise yourself up a little and swing to the platform ahead of you. If you happen to die fron this point on, you'll start here. This next part is awesome. Jump forward and latch on to the hook point ahead of you. You're going to need to adjust yourself towards the wall to your left a little bit. Your goal is to swing kinda into the wall, wall run, jump and latch on to the next hook point ahead (luckily, you can just mash triangle after you jump off the wall and hook on rather than time it, eh?). Once you do that, just swing onto the platform in front of you. THERE IS A HUGE SHORTCUT HERE! It's not a legit one. This wasn't supposed to be like this. The developers did not catch this when they made the gmae. From this platform, if you look ahead towards the sunny areea, you can see a hook point sticking out of the wal. If you run a bit and jump towards it and mash your hook button, you can latch onto it. If you take this shortcut, scroll down to the paragraph that starts with "CHEATER McGHEE's." Those who havne't played before MIGHT want to take the long way as it puts into practice a move you havne't used before. You also miss the most worthless item in the game. The actual path requires you to, from that platform, turn to your left and jump up onto the ledge. Head through the tunnel in the middle (it's the only one that takes you anywhere). You'll come to narrow paths with, guess what, spikes! The spikes constantly stick and then retract out of the ground. As the butterfly says, you need to, when the spikes go down, run to the wall in the narrow area they're in, wall hug and then press X (jump) to jump up and brace your arms and legs against the wall to avoid the spikes. When the spikes retract, hit X to come down (you can only hang there for so long, anyway) and either re-wall hug and scoot some more and rejump up to avoid the spikes or just plain make a break for it. This art of hanging is what the game erronously calls the "ceiling cling." Which just confuses people when they get the 'increase ceiling cling time' item. Which is garbage anyway. The goony part about this is that it's not so much hard to get in the narrow space and wall hug as it is kinda jerky. Which leads to impalement, sometimes. So if you don't get your wall hug going quick, abort and wait for the spikes to come out and retract and then start again. Anyway, you do this 3 times and then you come to a part with these big boulders hanging down. It's an outside area. Before traversing, stand at the dege of the ground in front of the first boulder and drop down. There's a little area below with a "secret" item. This item, ironically enough, as you just got done using it, increases your ability to "Ceiling Cling." I missed this my first play through and found it on accident later. To get back up, wall jump off one of the side walls and direct yourself towards the ledge above. Now, to go across some boulder thingies. Jump on the first boulder and hook on to the hook point ahead. You can either swing and jump onto the next boulder and then latch onto the next hook point or just build up enough momentup and swing past the boulder and immediately hook on to the next hook point. CHEATER McGHEE's will be here already, since they jumped from an earlier platform and took advantage of an oversight that lead to a shortcut. No shame in that. That's another form of gameplay. Either how, again, you can either swing onto the next boulder and then hit the next hook point and then swing onto the wooden platform OR you can swing directly to the next hook point and go from there OR you can just swing directly to the wooden platform from here. Swinging directly to the wooden platform is hard. If you go for it, mash the hook button anyway to grab onto the hook point if you don't make it. Follow the wooden platform around and then jump up onto the wooden walkway. Follow the walkway and run-jump across the gap. Hook onto the hook point and swong ahead to the next hook point. Turn yourself to the left adn swing onto the wooden walkway and proceed ahead through the tunnel. And you're done with one of the funnest parts in the game in my opinion. PLEASE do not fall during your last swings. As you can see by looking down, the penalty is either death or falling down to a point that is VERY far back. *********** *********** SAVE ALERT! *********** *********** ----------------------------------------- Section 7.2H - Meet Chiyome And Akemi ----------------------------------------- Mountain Pass. BOSS FIGHT! - Lightning Mountain MacGregor. Ok, so her name isn't Lighting Mountain MacGregor. All I know is that she's old and annoying and has some horribly programmed game mechanics behind her. She also takes advantage of yours. She's actually not that hard once you know the deal. The Lightning Keeper isn't that hard. Another crazy thing here that stops later on in the game is a SAVE PONT BEFORE A BOSS FIGH! Be grateful. HINTS FIRST: - She needs to gather up lightning from her pillars before she can attack with her lightning power. That takes some time. - She's most vulerable AFTER any of her attacks. As long as she isn't shielded by lightning. - You can pull down branches by hooking onto them and mashing square. - Stay out of the trees until the VERY VERY VERY end. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - -- - - -- - Phase 1 - "I'll run around you and try to hit you" phase. What is this, Mario Brothers? I've never been fond of "don't touch the boss or you die" type of things in games like these. Either how, in phase 1, she'll just run around gathering up lighting from her 3 lightning pillars and then try to run into you. the only way to get her to stop chasing you is to let her get close enoug to you so that she jumps at you. Kind of a dumb way to work a boss, but anyway... your goal is to first take out the lightning pillars. You can do this by, of course, hitting them. The problem is trying to avoid getting hit while you do that, as her "run into you" attack hurts. It's best to just run in a circle from pillar to pillar. When she gets close to you to try to run into you, do a quick yet slight juke to one side to hopefully get her to miss. Take this opportunity to attack the next pillar you come across. My tip is: Do NOT ever turn around to attack a pillar because it's closer. Keep your running momentum, even if it means running to a further pillar. Only stop running when you're attacking a pillar. This brings us to another point... The more attacks you do on a pillar, the more risk you run of getting hit. It takes 4 on normal mode to take down a pillar. Executing a whole 4 hit combo leaves you cutting it VERY close as far as getting hit (as she's constantly going to be running at you). You can take the small risk and hit a pillar once and then start running again, but that will take a long time. Especially if you die a few times and have to restart (as dying takes you all the way back to phase 1). 3 hits is good. Make a round of 3 hits on each and then another round of one hit on each. But the choice is yours. Be as daring or safe as you want. Once you get all the pillars down, she'll still gun for you. Only she'll do less damage on hit an be much easier to avoid. When her pillars are down, lock on. Right as she jumps at you, do a "jumping to the side" latch on and instant pull. REMEMBER TO DO THE INSTANT PULL. If you take to long to yank the wire, she'll break it. Do this as much as you can until she jumps into the trees/air. When she does this, GET AS FAR AWAY FROM THE MIDDLE AS POSSIBLE. She'll do a big ground shockwave that hurts like sin and relights the pillars. Avoid that and take down the pillars as you did before. Repeat everything until she enters phase 2. She seems to be most vulnerable during her jump attack. No surpise there. The hardest part about phase 1 is getting close enough to her while she's running to get her to miss her jump attack so you have time to attack the pillars Phase 2 - "I'll sit in the middle and throw things at you." This phase was the hardest to figure out but is very easy. First things first, get away from her. She'll do two primary attacks. She'll throw lighting discs at you. These knock you to the ground and then erupt. That's two hits of MAJOR damage. Try to have MORE than 50% health at all times. Hope you grabbed those elixirs at the beginning of thi area. Her other attack is a crazy flip or three in the air that sends out a lightning shockwave. Very slow attack. Damaging. Here's what I do... Stay far away. When she throws a disc, RUN TOWARDS HER and jump OVER the disc. Even though they come back to her, they don't seem to hit on the way back. Combo her. She'll fall. Get the HECK away and repeat. As i've said before, the enemies have mad oki in this game. IF you get hit, chances are, you're going to catch another disc or two before you get away, as she'll throw it to hit you just as you get up. Funny thing... if you're in the air and get hit by the disk, the second hit (the eruption) misses. So if you get knocked down, try jumping as soon as you get up to either avoid the disc or negate some damage. That's another high ponit about this strat. Jumping over the discs lowers damage risk. IF YOU ARE LOCKED ON when you run at her, you can roll under the discs (Jump while locked on and running at her). A lot more fluid. The 3 hit lock on combo does as much damage as the 4 hit not locked on one, so it doesn't matter either how. And another key point I forgot to mention.... try to run at her as a disc is going back to her to give yourself enough time to hit her when you jump over/roll under the next one. You don't want her to throw another disc at you before you hit her and you DON'T want to attack to early because that will result in you throwing the wire, which will slow you down and get you dis...c'd. The front roll method (which I just figured out, by the way), seems a LOT more effective. The front roll is invulnerable to her lightning discs. And once you roll through one, it doesn't seem to be able to hit you anymore. Combo away. Small note: When you combo her and retreat, the camera pans weird. Make sure to compenate for it or you could end up running back into her... Either how, repeat that ad nausem. Jump over a disc, combo, retreat, repeat. Do this until she enters phase 3. Phase 3 - "Float like a butterfly, sting like a tree-dog...." She takes to the trees in this form. The worst part here is that her attacks now home in no matter where you are and they are strong. But it's still simple. Use your Radar. Find her arrow on her radar and run as close to it as possible. this means she's in a tree above you. Latch on with your swinging hook (do not jump off the ground) and mash square to pull it down. You know you got her because she'll make some zany "i'm losing my balance" noises and her lightning will stop. If neither of these happen, hit R1 to unhook the tree and move quickly to avoid any homing in lightning and work your way around and latch again. It shouldn't be hard to latch on to the branch she's on and yank her down. The moment the branch comes lose, MOVE. I think the falling branches can hit you. Lock on to her (she'll be sprawled out on the ground) and combo her. You don't HAVE to lock on, but that's the easiest way to locate her quickly. SHE WILL ATTACK ON THE WAY UP INTO THE TREES. So after you combo her, move away slightly and allow her to retake to the trees. I find it's best to, once you get her down the first time, lock onto her and STAY locked on. You'll easily be able to see where she is nad run right up to her and yank her down and move out of the way of the falling branches, move back in and combo, move back out, follow her and repeat. After eating a phat combo, she'll return to der trees. Repeat until she enters phase 4. IF you don't hit her good enough when you knock her down, eventually, she'll run out of branches. This happened to me once, but barely. She'll just try to fight you similar to phase 1 mode without her lightning shield. Basically, she'll be kinda BSing, waiting for you to hit her a couple licks so she gets low enough on energy to go to phase 4. Phase 4 - "Come and get me." You know it's phase 4 because she'll scramble up a tree, rather than jump (it's always the same tree). Here, all you have to do is jump on the tree she's on and then start working your way around, jumping up from branch to branch until you get high enough to lock on to her and wire attack her. It's not THAT hard. Kinda confusing, since you're doing a "beam jump" (predetermined jump speed and distance used usually when you"re on beams). Simply go to the tree she's on, attatch the hook and pull yourelf up to a branch. You pretty much jump in a circle around the tree, working your way up, as the branches get smaller and smaller. Once you're high enough to lock on and wire attack her, do so. Your straight up jump becomes MAD high on this tree, so you can use that to skip a few levels of brances and get up higher. Refrain from falling. on the ground, you CAN be hit by her homing lightning. This is the most confusing part of the battle and is near impossible to explain perfectly. Two major things: 1: Phase 4 is similar to phase 3. MAKE SURE SHE'S IN PHASE 4! I once thought she was when she wasn't and kept eating her phase 3 homing lightning. How do you make sure she's in phase 4? 2: HER HOMING LIGHTNING WILL NEVER HIT YOU WHEN YOU'RE IN THE TREE SHE IS ON. At that point, it's all aesthetics and she's pretty much a sitting duck wiating for you to end her misery. And with her death ends level two! C-C-Click Click! Booyah!