In Onimusha: Way of the Sword you’ll go through the game and some bosses will be easy, while others are going to put up a serious fight. Rasho-gan - Wish Warper was the first boss that I genuinely struggled with. I have to admit, I did rage quit a couple of times against this boss, but that’s just because he’s the first truly difficult boss in the early game. But don’t worry, if you’re stuck like I was, these tips should help you get through the fight no problem.
Rasho-gan - Wish Warper boss guide in Onimusha: Way of the Sword
My biggest tip for fighting Rasho-gan is to keep your distance. Not in the same way you keep your distance from Daidara to bait out his charge, but far enough away from Rasho-gan that you give yourself adequate time to react to his attacks. If you stay too close, his attacks can easily catch you off guard because many of them don’t have much of a wind-up. By keeping your distance, you force him to come to you, giving you more time to Reflex Dodge or parry his attacks.
Another tip I can give, is that this fight will be much easier if you’ve worked on your parrying. Constantly dodging throughout the fight will just make it last longer, and he is fairly easy to stagger with successful parries. However, keep a keen eye on him. He has an animation where he can immediately recover from being parried and follow it up with a backwards overhead attack. This attack can also be parried, and it doesn’t happen often, but you should still be ready for it.
Rasho-gan also has a ranged attack that you’ll need to deal with. He’ll square up his shoulders and throw small balls of oily malice at you around four to six times. These are fairly easy to block or deflect, but you can dodge them as well. Another attack to watch out for is when he charges up a large ball of malice. He’ll hold it above his head before sending it slowly toward you. You’ll need to shoot this ball with your Oni Bow before it reaches you. Don’t fully charge your bow here. You want to shoot quickly because as soon as he launches the large ball, he will be charging directly behind it in an attempt to catch you off guard. Pop the big ball, then immediately prepare to parry his incoming attack.
Throughout the fight, Rasho-gan will tether himself in an attempt to make himself stronger. If you leave him tethered, he’ll advance through his stages much faster, and you definitely want to avoid that. He’s also one of the few bosses in the game that doesn’t eat souls, so these tethers are essentially his way of powering himself up.
Whenever he tethers himself, you’ll need to shoot the tether with your Oni Bow. The first time, it should only take one hit to break. The second time, it will take around four shots, and if he manages to do it again, it can take around six. While he’s tethered, he’ll try to close the distance between you, so keep moving away from him and focus your bow shots on breaking the tether.
During his second stage, he gains another use for the tether. He’ll grab onto a nearby building and attempt to literally bring the house down on you. You need to shoot the tether quickly while he’s holding the building above his head before he throws it at you. Luckily, these tethers only take one hit to break, so you don’t need to worry about firing multiple shots. Once he reaches his final stage, he’ll use five tethers to grab large rocks and trees around the arena. When this happens, you need to sever the tether that is directly above his head. Doing this will cause him to drop the object on himself, which also makes him drop the rest. If you break one of the other tethers instead, he’ll still throw the remaining objects at you, and you’ll need to dodge very quickly to avoid them.
Lastly, during this final stage, Rasho-gan will transform his sword into a pair of scissors. He has an attack where he pounces at you from above with them, and I recommend dodging this attack instead of trying to parry it. It’s a powerful move with a fairly small parry window, so dodging is the much safer option.
If you’ve followed these tips, Rasho-gan should be a lot easier to deal with. It’s completely understandable if you struggled here because he is a tough boss, especially this early in the game.
But good job getting through this one. Next up, you’ll be fighting Byakue, who isn’t quite as difficult as Rasho-gan but is still definitely formidable.
While these are still some pretty early-game bosses, maybe you’re also starting up The Blood of Dawnwalker. If so, check out the best early-game skill to unlock!
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is available now on PC via Steam, Xbox Series X|S, Playstation 5, and Nintendo Switch 2.
