I’ve just finished my marathon playthrough of Ghost of Yotei, which I liked a lot, though by the end, I hadn’t found it exceptionally difficult. A few bosses certainly took a few tries, but there is one specific duel that is just leagues above the others: The final fight with Takezo the Unrivaled.
You will hear about this duel pretty early on in Ghost of Yotei, and you’ll be tasked with fighting Takezo’s “disciples” at different dueling trees around the world. Do that, and you draw him out into a weirdly easy fight that it turns out, is not the final fight. Rather, that one takes place on the top of Mount Yotei, and needless to say, Takezo has “leveled up” by then.
The fight is brutal, and I almost threw in the towel at a few points. But I ultimately was victorious through one specific method: cheating. Okay, not really cheating, this is not some sort of glitch or hack to kill him. But cheating in the “boy am I being dishonorable as hell” sense. Still counts though, and the game has trained you to use every tool at your disposal. I’ll go through what I did.
Armor of the Undying – I don’t know why you’d use anything but this for this duel. It has three abilities if you’re weapon aligned, in this case, that’s the spear to counter his dual katanas, which gives you health on stagger, a larger perfect parry window and more stagger damage on focus attacks. Obviously, max it out.
Charms – Though you are told you have to equip Takezo’s five charms to meet him on the mountain, you do not have to use those five charms, which some may not realize. You can just change to any loadout. Mine was:
Charm of Futsunushi – Perfect Parries/Dodges are easier to performTakezo’s Charm of Bold Deflection – Parrying does a major amount of stagger damageFather’s Charm – Perfect Parries restore a major amount of healthCharm of Thoughtful Restoration – Gain a major amount of maximum healthCharm of Enduring Resolve – Abilities that use spirit have a major chance to regain 1 spiritCharm of Mount Yotei – Reduce all damage taken by a moderate amount, restore a major amount of health on Perfect Parry
So between three charms and your armor, it is much easier to Perfect Parry, it restores a ton of health and does stagger damage. But that’s mostly just your defense. Takezo does so much damage that this whole setup is mostly to avoid getting one or two shot. And that can still happen. The actual attack strategy?
Spear – I know this may seem like some sort of honorable katana duel on the mountain but no, you have to use the spear to do the kind of stagger damage you need. I would almost exclusively use the spear’s triangle+O focus move that stabs forward and runs him backward. Even if you don’t break his stagger, you still get at least three shots in after that before he starts defending or fighting. Do not do your typhoon kick. Even with upgrades, it’s too slow.
Emergency Button – This is your L1+R1 disarm move, as it’s faster to do than try to dodge some of his red attacks. Between the focus spear and this move, this is why you have the “spirit regain” charm so you can do both more often. Do not bother using spirit to resurrect unless he’s like 20% away from dead, just start over.
Cheat – This is where cheating comes in, you want to spam your toolkits to break his attacks and stagger as much as you can. It takes about 5 or so kunai to stagger him, and if he blocks, get in very close to him and he will miss. Then you have your three pistol shots. What ultimately did it for me was smoke bombs, as it’s not stagger break, but it’s an interrupt and you can get in a full combo while he’s disoriented. Pocket sand isn’t good. Aimed bombs are too slow. Bow and gun, while you can use those to cheat in other duels, are not good here, as he’s just too fast, and it’s way too hard to get distance from him except for maybe the first two seconds of the fight.
So:
Perfect parry blue attacksInterrupt red attacks with disarm or toolsDo stabby poke focus with the spear and follow upGet the hell out of the way of yellow disarm attacks
Oh and…cook some melee fish, if you can. Enjoy. He’s a beast.
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