In Onimusha: Way of the Sword, after defeating Ganryu, you track down a giant beast that you follow into the Dark Realm. This beast is in search of Oni souls to eat, and when you finally encounter him, he plans to eat you. But Onimusha isn’t on the menu so you have to put an end to this beast.
The beast named Daidara - Slavering Glutton, is essentially an intro Boss FIght — after Ganryu of course — that sets up a theme of how the rest of these boss fights are going to go.
Daidara - Slavering Glutton boss guide in Onimusha: Way of the Sword
If Ganryu is a boss fight that teaches you how to parry, Daidara functions similarly, except he’s here to teach you how to reflex dodge. The best way to defeat Daidara is by Reflex Dodging and striking him when he’s staggered after the dodge. If you keep your distance from him, he will have to charge you, and his charges are fairly slow and easy to Reflex Dodge.
However, if he does get close, he will attempt to swing his weapon at you, and these attacks can be parried. I don’t recommend relying on this though, because a blow from him will stagger you and cause you to lose souls that he will eat. And one thing this game will teach you quickly is that you don’t want bosses to eat the souls left behind, so whenever possible dodge his charges instead.
Another attack to be wary of happens when Daidara gets close. He’ll cock his weapon back and do a sort of spinning 1-2-3 swing attack. Each of these swings can be parried, and they’re fairly slow. If you don’t parry the first one, that’s okay — the second and third can still be parried as well.
The easiest way to tell that Daidara is about to charge is when he’s standing at a distance and starts stomping his feet like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. This is your indication that he’s about to charge, giving you plenty of time to prepare to Reflex Dodge.
Once you enter the second phase in the temple, things get a little more difficult to maneuver. I recommend keeping your distance here and forcing him to charge at you so that he destroys all the surrounding pillars and shelves. This won’t cause anything to break down and defeat the boss early or anything like that, but it will make it much easier to see what you're doing and move around the arena.
One last thing to note: if you get his stamina low, I recommend aiming for the souls if you are early in the fight, this prevents him from progressively getting stronger. Then if you’re later in the fight, focus your attack on his head instead to deal major damage.
Using these tips, you should have no problem defeating Daidara. He’s the first big bad boss, but he’s far from the most difficult. After defeating Daidara, the next boss you’ll fight is Rasho-Gan, and he’s truly the first difficult boss you’ll fight in the game.
If you’re looking for another challenging game with plenty of boss fights, check out our Mortal Shell II guides hub!
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is available now on PC via Steam, Xbox Series X|S, Playstation 5, and Nintendo Switch 2.
