Not every boss in Onimusha: Way of the Sword has repeat fights. However, Byakue and Dohatsu-ten are both greater Genma that emerge from certain rifts, and they drop essential resources when defeated, so these are actually welcome repeat encounters.
Dohatsu-ten - Heaven’s Bane boss fight guide Onimusha: Way of the Sword
This fight is completely different from Byakue in the sense that this is an all-out sword fight.
Against Byakue, you generally want him to come to you. With Dohatsu-ten, you don’t want to give him the chance to charge at you. He’s extremely fast, and his attacks can come out of nowhere, so the easiest way to defeat him is to simply out-swordfight him.
Get in his face early and put pressure on him. If you’re constantly attacking while parrying or deflecting his strikes, he’ll start feeling that pressure almost immediately.
You also want to prevent him from absorbing souls whenever possible. Try to keep him out of his later stages for as long as you can because once he powers up, he becomes incredibly aggressive and much harder to control. I recommend using the Earthshakers in this fight. Depleting his Stamina is very helpful because it allows you to deal a large amount of damage to him in one hit. Depleting his Stamina twice should be enough to win you the fight.
One attack you definitely need to be aware of is his unavoidable attack. Thankfully, it isn’t too difficult to parry because Dohatsu-ten charges it for a noticeable amount of time before unleashing it. As soon as you see the wind-up, prepare your parry and don’t panic.
Overall, the biggest thing to remember against Dohatsu-ten is aggression. Don’t give him room to dictate the fight. Stay close, keep the pressure on, and be ready to parry whenever he tries to take control of the battle.
This fight prepares you for the next boss fight, Benkei. That fight is quite literally the most aggressive fight you’ll encounter up to this point, so it makes sense that they’d throw an aggressive boss at you right before it.
If you need a break from the game after this boss fight, check out our article about a new upcoming chicken card game!
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is available now on PC via Steam, Xbox Series X|S, Playstation 5, and Nintendo Switch 2.
