The Legend of Tianding

On "Wanted Outlaw" difficulty this fight against Shimada is a three stage battle.

Pre-fight Preparation

Choose the talismans that will make things easiest for your style of play. I used:

- Get an extra air jump
- Make it easier to get a 'perfect' / shadow dodge
- Buns give extra health
- Shadow form lasts longer
- Invulnerability after damage lasts longer

Also, I stuck with Shadow Clone.

You could create a weapon build to make the second stage easier, using

- Cannon drop on pickpocketing the boss
- Extra weapon damage
- Extra weapon durability

But I didn't like that approach as much.

Stage 1

Dodge is your friend here. Hit him one or twice, but be prepared to dodge his attacks.

When he stabs his sword into the ground, it will become covered in ice and freeze you, setting you up for significant damage. You need to learn to jump up, then B + UP to get higher, then hold RT to glide down. Once the ice starts to clear, B + DOWN to stomp kick onto his head.

The main attacks you'll see are:

- Slow slash (dodge, then hit)
- Fast slash (harder to dodge, but same idea)
- Rising slash (easy enough to dodge, but be prepared to dodge again because Shimada often follows this up with:)
- Jump kick (dodge - this is a great way to get a shadow clone active)
- Red flashing slash - a long range unblockable slash (easy to jump over, or you can try B kicking your way through it)
- Yellow arc counter attack - this comes out quick (move through and attack him from behind)

The main tactic I used was to hit and move - dodging those attacks as a priority and doing some damage when you can. Shimada hits hard, so make sure if you take a hit or two you take the time to heal up.

When you have done roughly 40% damage, Shimada will stab his sword into the ground, there will be a dialogue scene and you'll drop into a new space.

Stage 2

After dropping down, you'll have a moment to eat a bun and then hit Y to pickpocket Shimada. Under standard talisman circumstances he'll give you a pistol.

At the start of this stage you'll get a large prompt on screen to time a dodge (RB) - nail that and get a shadow clone. Shimada will then put up a yellow arc counter attack, but you (and your shadow clone) can shoot him for as much damage as possible.

Shimada moves on to adding elemental attacks to his Stage 1 attacks. These attacks are slower, hit harder and have much wider AoE effects.

- Slow slash with lasting flame wave (dodge / jump over, then hit)
- Rising slash with ice (easy enough to dodge, but be prepared to dodge again because Shimada often follows this up with:)
- Jump kick with earth spears (dodge away from the earth spears - this is a great way to get a shadow clone active)
- Red flashing slash with long electricity streak behind him - a long range unblockable slash (hard to jump over completely because it lasts longer than you'd want - try to stay up in the air until it clears)
- Yellow arc counter attack - this comes out quick (move through and attack him from behind - this is a great time to deal damage to him)
- Build up to a fast draw attack that prompts you on screen with an RB dodge (time this to get shadow clone, hit him once or twice, then move through the yellow arc counter attack he pulls up and pile damage into his back)

Shimada will also call flame columns up from the floor in fixed patterns. At minimum dodge into the clear spaces between these waves, or you can try to do a dodge-and-hit on Shimada as he stands there. It is very likely he'll call up a yellow arc counter attack stance at the end of one of these moves if you are hitting him - just get behind him and put the damage in.

Be sure to keep an eye on your health - you can die very quickly in this stage as some attacks will take 50% of your health.

Get Shimada to zero health and he'll die.... only for his shadow form to appear. Attack the shadow form a few times to have it laugh at you, then stage 3 begins.

Stage 3

Shadow Shimada hovers on top of the screen. You can't hit him here.

He'll send out some spinning energy bars around him - try to dodge up into the air once there is space and keep in the air until the bars spin out.

Next Shadow Shimada will drop energy bars from the top of the screen. Keep in the gaps.

The third wave are energy bars fired at angles - generally these are easiest to avoid in the far left / right sections of the screen.

The final wave are energy blades that come from (for me) the left and head to the right of the screen. You'll have to jump up and around these bars like it's a platform section to avoid damage.

Hopefully you'll have enough buns to counter any damage you take here - those energy bars hit hard.

Once you' survive those attacks, Shadow Shimada will drop down to do a fast draw blade attack - hit RB as you did before at the right time, activating shadow clone. Shadow Shimada will then take a knee - pile in as much damage as you can. I believe only your shadow damage counts that this point.

I managed to do enough damage at this point that Shadow Shimada was defeated. It's possible that if you don't do enough damage Shadow Shimada rises up again and repeats his attacks, but I haven't tried this out.

Good luck!

This is for beating the final Boss.
This fight has 2 stages with no save inbetween.
Before you go in id recommend to choose 2 talisman that focus on the shadow ability and 1 for the bun recovery.

In Phase 1 he will perform alot of basic attacks that range from just a regular slash with his sword to slashing and then attacking from the air.
Those you can dodge quite easily with timed right as he strikes you. getting this down might need some attempts because if you play on easy this is the first fight in which you cannot win without actually dodging.
So after a successful dodge you turn into your shadow form and deal some heavy damage.
There are 3 Special moves he performs in the first phase.
The first you will encounter he almost always performed right at the start of the fight.
This one is him freezing the ground after raising his sword in the air and piercing the ground.
While you see him perform the raise you have to jump then jump again and then perform a kick in the air (while in the air) and then use your glider.
Basically you will be pressing to double jump, then to perform the kick to elevate you higher press + and then hold to glide down. This should be enough airtime so you can avoid the ice floor.

2nd move he does is a yellow barrier block that when you attack it from where hes facing you he will grab and stab you with serious damage. He likes to perform this one after you dodge him so only attack once after a dodge with your shadow ability and then attack him from the other side of the barrier.

Last one is where he starts to glow red and sprints at you. You can dodge this one but i found it hard to time so just jump over him.

After phase 1 you will get a cutscene where he destroys the ground and you enter a vulcanic area. Directly after gliding down depending on your health you can use a bun pressing . Right after that press to squeeze a gun out of your enemy. Shoot him while hes idle and keep dodging.
There will the 2 quicktime events that have you pressing at the right time but only press the button when it enters the inner circle.
In this phase there are a bunch of attacks that make the ground lethal. For example he will electrify the ground so you can use the same method as with the ice floor.
There are also attacks which i wasnt able to figure out how to block for example he will shoot flames out of the ground that engulf the whole ground. Thats where you use your remaining Buns.
Basically you should be able to save them up for the second phase. The attacks dont do alot more damage but are just harder to block imho.