Ninja Gaiden Walkthrough for Xbox Game Name: Ninja Gaiden Format: Xbox Submitted By: mikelar Undoubtedly, some of the hardest bosses ever have been created in Ninja Gaiden by, who I can only assume, are devil-kin programmers. The attention to detail in the game means that each boss requires different tactics to defeat him/her/it throughout the game. As such, I decided to compile a guide on defeating the bosses in the hope that some gamers can avoid the difficulty of meeting a new boss for the first time. Each boss in this walk through will be referred to by a relevant name and it's number in the sequence you have to fight it. Before we start, I should say that I had upgraded the Dragon Sword, the Vigoorian Flails as well as the Fireball and Electric Ninpo magic attacks FULLY as soon as I could. I suggest you also do the same as I reference the use of these attacks in the walk through. 1st Murai The first boss in the game who fights like he's the last, Murai is both powerful and fast with an annoyingly good blocking ability. The key tactics here are to keep your distance and to keep moving so use the vast space you're given. Don't let him back you into a corner and don't try blocking any combos he pulls of (that is to say, get out of the way instead!) because he'll just do a grab move which does far more damage than a regular hit. Use the roll manoeuvre to dodge his attacks whilst getting in a quick counter attack before moving away again. You can only expect to get in two or three hits per counter attack before he starts blocking and counter attacking himself so strike quickly. Repeat the tactic of rolling and counter attacking until Murai's energy gets down to 1/3 of what is was, when you achieve this the battle will end. 2nd Red Samurai on Dragon Horse The most annoying thing about this boss is his magic using ninja sidekicks. They should be your first target when fighting this boss. Annoyingly, they have the ability to disappear if the think they're in trouble so you need to be quick when attacking. The best time for an attack is when they're casting magic which takes only a matter of seconds for them so you need to act fast. Fortunately, they're pretty weak and one combo will finish them off. You'll need to kill around six of these magic-using ninjas before they stop reappearing which is where you can then concentrate on the main boss. Riding atop his horse, the Red Samurai uses a spear which has a long reach so avoid running along side the horse. Instead, attack from the behind. Watch out for when he makes a U-turn because he has a nasty move where he swipes behind him in case your following which normally, you are. So, when he gets to one end of the bridge to turn around, block. Another thing to remember is to avoid any aerial attacks as his counter attack for these moves is very powerful. If you keep hitting whilst positioned from behind the horse, you should soon be able to topple the Red Samurai. 3rd Fat Electro-man/robot As soon as the battle begins start running towards the boss as, if you keep at a distance, he uses his accurate electro gun which you have little chance to dodge. Avoid getting too close because he, like Murai, uses a grab move which is fairly powerful. Use the roll dodge to circle him. When you get behind him, he has a fairly strong attack where he quickly turns around and smashes his metal arm into you. Fortunately this can be blocked however the grab cannot so after his arm attack you'll have to act quick. The best attack method is to, after he attacks, jump and use the strong attack (Y button whilst in the air) to slash him before quickly rolling out of the way again. Carry on this process, rolling and aerial attacking until you defeat the fat electro-man/robot. Then watch him explode. 4th Dragon Fiends/Mutent Blob The fight begins with you having to kill the three mutant dragons in the area. Make use of Ryu's ability to run up walls to dodge the Dragon's running attacks whilst also remembering to use the slice attack (Y whilst in the air) attack after Ryu runs up the wall as far as he can. When fighting the Dragons, pull off short combos of three or four hits at the most before moving away quickly - the have a grab move where they bite your head and it does a lot of damage. Target one of them at a time so that they are dispatched as quickly as possible. After you defeat them, you'll see a cut scene where another mini-boss bursts through a wall. The blob has two tentacles which it swings around with quite a range so keep in the air as much as possible. The aim is to destroy both tentacles which will allow you to attack the body. The best attack is the jump/slash attack on the tentacles and normal combo moves on the main body. Repeat this process each time the tentacles regenerate to kill the mutant blob. 5th Bone Dragon The Bone Dragon precariously balances over a pit. The idea is that you attack the Dragons feet as he clings onto the edge nearest you. Attacks to watch out for are the Dragons bite attack and the tail swing. The former can be dodged by moving as far right or left to the platform as possible whilst the latter requires you to jump twice, once each time the tail swings by. Use long combo moves on each foot until you trigger a sequence of the dragons foot turning grey. Repeat this for each of the four feet avoiding the spines that the Dragon shoots by roll-dodging or blocking until the Dragon falls into the pit. 6th Alma, Greater Fiend Alma has both strong ranged attacks as well as powerful melee attacks and can move pretty fast to boot. Avoid getting too close if she's in the air as she'll catch you in a purple tractor beam which is her most powerful attack. Wait for her to swoop in to attack you before roll dodging out of the way and performing a counter attack. Use the longest combos you can pull off as these attacks are the only damage you'll do. If Alma starts to fire her ranged magic, keep running in one direction to dodge out the way. The flying pillars cannot be blocked so your going to have to run or roll dodge to avoid them. 7th Tanks In the military base you'll need to defeat the two tanks before moving on. Fortunately you don't need to battle them both at the same time. The best tactic is, after gathering the explosive and armour piercing arrows from the crates in the middle of the arena, is to take the man firing the gun on top of the tank out first. This stops the hail of bullets for a short time however the turret will still fire. After killing the machine gunner, you should be able to fire two or three, depending on how quick you are to take aim, at the main tank with the armour piercing arrows. Keep rolling and jumping in order to dodge the tank shells when it starts to take aim. You'll need to repeat this process around three times to destroy the tank. Destroying the first will trigger the next to attack so simply repeat the tactics for the next tank. 8th Attack Chopper You'll find both explosive and armour piercing arrows on each side of the platform for you to restock your ammo. The best type of arrow to use is the armour piercing. You'll need an accurate aim for this boss as the best time to fire is when the chopper is on the move as it isn't attacking back. Use the zoom (R trigger) to make shooting the chopper an easier task. Watch out for the missiles it launches as these are homing. The best tactic is to wait for the missiles to get close before quickly rolling/jumping out of the way. The chopper normally releases two bursts of the missile attack so keep on the move. The worst attack is the bombing run the chopper does. It lines itself up with you then flies in perform and air-strike, a very powerful one at that. Like the missile attack, wait for the chopper to get pretty close before rolling out of the way. Continue bombarding it with the armour piercing arrows, restocking from the creates nearby, until a sequence of the chopper crashing is shown. 9th Electro-worm/Two Electro-worms Quite a tricky one this. You're not allowed in the water as the worms current electrocutes you whilst you're constantly being swiped at standing on the land. The best tactic is to run up the wall and perform the slash attack so that Ryu comes down with the Dragon Sword on top of the worm. Since the worm swipes a lot, chances are pretty high that you'll hit the worm most times. Also, use ranged weapons when the worm retreats into its hole to do extra damage. Don't stand still for long as if the ranged electro-attack, which does a fair bit of damage, doesn't get you, the swipe will. If you can't run up the walls then keep jumping and performing the normal slash attack until the worms are defeated. 10th Bone Bird Demon The best tactic here is to wait for the Bird to move to the side of the room where the stairs are. When here, you can get behind the bird and attack it's back. Watch out however because if you get too close whilst behind, the Bird will stomp with it's feet trying to get you. When in front of the bird, you should watch out for are the laser attack which creates a wall of fire along the path of where the laser was fired. To avoid this, keep on the move by rolling and jumping when you see the bird fire the laser. The bird will also, from time to time, land on an upper platform at the side of the room which makes it unreachable with sword attacks. Instead, use your bow to attack and do extra damage until the bird comes down. 11th Doku Another area where you're given plenty of room to move about so make use of it. However, if you wander to far from Doku, he'll throw his sword which is fairly easy to dodge but does a fair bit of damage. The best form of attack is swipe through Doku using a particular attack with the Dragon Sword. To perform this swipe, jump forwards and press Y. This will make Ryu rush through the air and target if it's close enough. The advantage of this move is that, not only is it fairly powerful, it puts you out of the way of a direct counter attack because you're behind the target after you perform this move. Also use the walls if Doku corners you to either jump over him and gain some distance or to attack him directly. 12th Snow Monster This isn't the most powerful boss and is fairly easy to defeat. Again with all the bosses, keep on the move by jumping and rolling out of the way. Watch out for the monster's grab attack as it's the most powerful. You'll know it's about to perform this attack when it rears up into the air for a spilt second before swiping at you with it's arms. The best time for a combo is just after the monster has performed this attack when it looks like it's having a rest so pull off the longest combo you can before running away. Another attack the snow monster has is the ability to summon several ice shards from under your position which follow you as you run. It's best to roll dodge these and, if you can, roll your way towards the Snow Monster to perform an attack after the 5th ice shard as appeared. The best overall tactic is to avoid being in front of the monster as he has no way of attacking you when your behind him, apart form when he uses the ice shard attack. 13th Fire Worm Like the Electro-worm, the Fire worm attacks from a hole at one end of the room whilst your at the other waiting for the right time to attack. The Fire Worm has the same attacks as the Electro-worm with the only difference being the elements used i.e. instead of electric bolts, the Fire Worm uses fire rings as it's ranged attack. The best tactic is to tempt the worm to perform it's swipe attack by standing fairly close to the edge. Once you see the worm rear-up, quickly move to the back of the room and let the swipe attack be performed. After this, the worm will remain close enough for an attack for a split second so perform the longest combo you can in order to do the most damage. To do even more damage, fire arrows as the worm when it's in the process of entering or leaving it's hole. If you got it, use the Windmill Shrekian (or whatever it's called) as you don't need ammo for this. You can dodge the fire rings by rolling just as the worm performs the attack, remember that the worm will fire two fire rings each time. 14th Golden Dragon You're not given much room to fight the Dragon so you'll have to be quick when rolling or jumping to avoid attack. When on the bottom platform, the Dragon will use a blast attack which cannot be dodged, only blocked and even then it does a small amount of damage, followed by a few fire balls which cannot be blocked, only dodged. Move up and down the platform when the Dragon is attacking, jumping over the fire breath attack as it sweeps past, waiting for the head to move close enough for attack. When the Dragon rests its head near you, perform long combos making sure to constantly attack, even after the dragon has moved it's head back as sometimes you can get an extra hit in. The best place to attack the dragon is from the higher platform which can be reached when a platform at the bottom is fired upwards by lava as the Dragon won't attack with fireballs when your up here. Attack the head enough and the Dragon will collapse into the lava. 15th Alma 2, Even Greater Fiend Alma is back and has legs this time. Like last time however, she can still fly. The tactics used for your first encounter with her remain pretty much unchanged. The only difference being not to stand in front of her when she's on the ground as this is when she'll perform her grab attack which wraps you in her legs and crushes you. The best attack when she's flying is the air swipe attack which is performed with and upgraded (to it's fullest) Dragon Sword. Jump forwards into the air and press Y to launch Ryu at (and through) Alma to perform a nice attack. As in the last fight, if Alma casts the purple ball magic, roll out of the way until all the balls have been launched. 16th Doku 2 Now you have to fight Doku's ghost. The air swipe attack comes in useful once more as it does quite a bit of damage whilst also moving you out of the way. Like in the last fight, Doku performs long, powerful combos if you stand in front of him for too long and throws his sword if you're too fair away. If you can, try and trap him in a corner. At one side of the area, a corner is formed in the middle of the wall and if you can trap him there, use the fire ball Ninpo attack which, if upgraded fully, does a fair amount of damage. Don't use any Ninpo magic if Doku is flying freely as he'll dodge out of the way, like most bosses. As with other large arenas, use the space provided to avoid being trapped in one corner. Be persistent in your attacks as each attack you perform, if not hitting him, causes him to block thus not allowing him chance to attack. In Hell: You'll meet these next three bosses back to back in the underworld. Make sure to take lots of healing potions with you and to go in with full health. 17th Mutant Blob II This is exactly the same as the mutant blob you faced earlier in the game and the same tactics should be employed. See the 4th Boss in this walk through for details. 18th Snow Monster II Like with the blob, you've already face this monster in the ice cave so repeat your tactics. See the 12th Boss in this walk through for details. 19th Devil After defeating the two above bosses, you have to fight the devil. Like Alma, he flies about the arena attacking from above. Use the air swipe attack as much as possible and, unless totally necessary, don't bother with the fiends the Devil summons as they are easy to dodge and pose no real threat unlike the devil. The best time to attack is just after the devil has launched himself at you. You'll hear a whirring sound byte which signifies the devil is about to perform this attack. The attack involves the devil wrapping himself up in his wings and flying towards you like a bullet. After he's landed and hopefully missed you, perform the longest combos you can with the strongest weapon you have. Also like Alma's purple ball attack, the devil launches fireballs at you which can be dodged by constantly rolling out of the way. Perform enough long combos and the devil will die leaving you the final deity. 20th Stone Angel Flying on your slab of rock, the stone angel is fairly easy to beat. Just attack the blue stones on his chest and arms as much as you can before the purple beams hit you and, even when they do, keep on attacking. His swinging attacks aren't hard to dodge so just stay close to his body performing combos on his right or left arms as well as his chest. After smashing the stones, the angel will collapse into the lava. 21st Skull Monster With the right Ninpo, this boss can be fairly easy to beat. Follow him around as he walks about in the lava and wait for him to start launching skulls at you. When he starts doing this, use your Electric Ninpo which, if fully upgraded, will encase you in an electric shell as you cast the magic. This shell alone will destroy any skull that hits it doing a small amount of damage but when Ryu fully casts this spell, all skulls within range will be destroyed doing plenty of damage. Repeat this tactic, along with firing arrows or any other ranged weapon that does damage, as the monster wades through the lava to kill the monster. 22nd Murai II After Murai reveals himself your forced to fight his dark incarnation. Use the air swipe attack that I've mentioned several times along with short combos after he's finished an attack. Don't face Murai for too long as he'll perform long powerful combos. The odd swipe that Murai performs can be blocked but don't stand there blocking, instead roll away and keep your distance. Murai's ranged attack is his most powerful and involves him summoning a flying dragon to hit you. The best tactic to avoid this attack is to cast a Ninpo spell just as the dragon is about to fly into you as casting these spells causes you to be temporarily invincible. Unfortunately, the actual Ninpo attack doesn't do any damage but it's worth it just to avoid the dragons powerful attack. Perform the air swipe attack as much as possible to kill Murai quickly. After defeating him, you're free to watch the nice ending. I hope you enjoyed fighting and defeating the bosses as much as I did! mikelar.