That's supposed to be both an actual question and a proclamation that Samuel is one really well designed boss battle. Rising has some pretty good boss battles besides (though I haven't completed it yet; in fact I'm still on the results screen after beating Sam), but Sam was just something else. It was all so incredibly frantic and required the utmost timing to properly guard against his flurry of attacks.

Plus there's his three different stages, each requiring different tactics (well, you can fall back on just using that dodge attack for a fair amount of the second and third) and then you add to it the fantastic song that's playing as well as the nice, open battleground. It's like something out of DBZ; two ridiculous super-powers clashing in the middle of nowhere.

He was also fucking tough, too! Playing on Hard mode, it took me like around 10 tries I think--and there hasn't been anything up until then that required as many retries--but I wasn't necessarily frustrated or anything. It's such a well designed and downright fun boss battle that I enjoyed learning from my mistakes and puzzling out how to properly react and when best to attack. Raiden in his mariachi outfit only amplified the awesomeness of it all and fitted the setting really well, too. Not since facing Vergil in DMC3 (all three times) have I enjoyed a classic mano-a-mano style duel.

I enjoyed all the boss battles (except Monsoon, since it just relies so much on an unresponsive parry system) but I think I like the final battle most just for it's sheer craziness

UHHHHH

For some reason Sam's fight didn't excite me as much as the other fights in the game (still very fun, certainly better than Sundwowner, but it wasn't the best for me). Part of it I think was him not testing your abilities enough throughout the course of the game, something that the fights with Vergil in DMC3 or Jeanne in Bayonetta did. They were your rival boss fights, and as you improved in skill, so did the rival. I didn't quite get that feeling with Sam. He's just there at the beginning to kick your ass, shows up again in chapter 3 to taunt you, and then you fight him on the side of the road in a one on one fight, which the setup for that was excellent I'll admit. Didn't exactly translate into the most memorable fight for me.

Monsoon, however, I would put as absolutely one of the best, just slightly topping the final boss. That dude had me on edge, ready to parry his attacks in all directions. Where the Blade Wolf fight was like a parry tutorial, that fight really forced me to get that shit down, and was super satisfying to pull off. And the music, too. So, so fantastic. I immediately restarted the fight right at the end because I wanted to keep fighting him and do it flawlessly.

Zorro would have been better

I was kind of let down by Sam. It was okay, but I expected a bigger fight. That final fight though...now that's entertaining.

I think I played that section over 40 times until I finally beat that fucker. I didn't like it that much as I just found it to be too difficult compared to what I was doing so far. I like Sam in general but not the fight.

Nope. I thought he was by far the easiest of the bunch and thought the entire fight lacked any sort of fun climax. I thought pretty much all of the bosses outside of Monsoon were really easy. Monsoon was my favorite fight. Saying its one of the best in the genre seems laughable to me when Alma from Ninja Gaiden, Vergil from DMC 3 and Jeanne from Bayonetta instantly pop to mind for memorable fights. Platinum did the best with what they had but the entire game seems okay at best to me.

I found Sam far too easy (playing on hard). It was disappointing for a character who I thought was pretty awesome. Especially that sword. After about 20 tries to beat sundowner it was really surprising that it hardly took any effort to beat him.

Now the final boss... I don't even want to talk about that. So far for me my favourite fight was probably mistral, not exactly challenging (but then again, on Hard, nothing but Sundowner and the final boss have even taken more than one try), but I thought she was really cool visually.

Hopefully on higher difficulties it's a bit more of a challenge. I hear Very Hard is no joke so I'm excited.

If you think the parry system is unresponsive you obviously didn't even grasp the basics of the gameplay, it works great.

I enjoyed it. However I did come at it as if I was a samurai.

Playing several hundred hours of the Way of the Samurai series, I didnt attack. We both stared at each other, when he moved I moved too. Untill he stuck I parried and carried on the fight, attacking only when there was an opening. The end for me was kind of awesome. Since while in in the actually fight mode we both slashed each other with Quickdraw then we both dodge round and slashed each other. With the result ending in the cut scene.

Fucking Armstrong... what in the mother of fuck?! I've literally attempted this guy like 100 times now, and I just... can't! It was first of all super difficult just to try and keep out of those fire rings he keeps spawning, but then there were those giant pieces of machinery who throws at you which would kill me instantly. I know now that I guess I'm supposed to run away from it... at least I think. I mean the game opens you up for a scripted sword-slicing moment, but it all happens so quick that as soon as I've activated blade mode I'll be dead in like a split-second anyway.

The closest I've gotten to twiddling his health to is about 120%, but then he fucking regenerated it all back!?! Maybe this is because I'm like the worst Rising player ever, but this guy is seemingly impossible for me. He can kill me in just 3-4 hits tops, and I've got no healing items or anything like that. Plus the camera can play havoc and get me killed, especially when you're trying to avoid the fire-rings or just after you go to recollect your sword.

I really hate that I'm having such a ridiculously hard time with this guy because otherwise I think it's all been really fun on Hard mode; challenging, but manageable. Then this POS shows up, and initially it was pretty neat because of how much of a spectacle it all was. Having to simply survive against him and then lose against him soon after, it's definitely the most Metal Gear of boss battles. And now that the real battle itself has started... This is Hell.

I think the camera makes this fight frustrating for me and kind of fucks me up when it comes to parrying. Of course some of that is me as well. So far I have liked all the boss Battles, Mistral is the only one that I beat without retrying though. The set up to Sam is fucking sweet, though like someone else said.

@yummylee: Aren't you suppose to blade-mode cut through the stuff he throws at you, lining up at least 3 of the 4 cutting points? Also get around him and blade-mode his back when he starts regenerating.

@yummylee: When he starts regenerating his health, go behind him and enter blade mode and when you hit the spot it shows he'll stop regenerating and be open to attack for like a whole 30 seconds or so

Big tip learn how much windup is on his fire attacks you can pound him to pieces while he is charging the attacks. Just make sure to back off in time. Also just dodge the boulders. You do get health and damage him for like 20% but its just too damn risky cause I blow at precisely cutting with blade mode.

Pro-tip, don't Zandatsu the machinery he throws at you, just ninja run toward him. Only attempt the Zandatsu Cut if you really need health items.

Even then I'd say fuck it his attacks are predictable enough that you should be able to get through with minimal damage unless your in the situation where one more hit is going to kill you anyway.

@turambar: @dasmart1: @demoskinos: Thanks, though I shortly figured out how to stop his regeneration. Even still, there's just so little very room for error, I simply can't do it. As I said, like 4 hits at most and I'm gone. I know pretty much how to handle all of his attacks, it's just the general anxiety should I actually wither his health down to a new 'record' (lowest I've gotten was like 30%) and I inevitably just fuck up. Those bleedin' fire rings are the worst, too. So easy to find yourself completely trapped with little room to do anything but most likely die.

I've literally put like... 3 hours into this now and I'm clearly not in any shape to complete it right now. I'm so damn demoralised that I feel like quitting video games altogether >_>'

And really, like 20% damage if you can pull off destroying the junk he throws at you?? It's clearly intended to be done, but it asks for you to have like supernatural timing it's so fucking quick. I've not once been able to successfully cut both sides of the whatever it is, and yet that's also no doubt what's making this extra difficult for me if they really do that much. And give you some health back...

@oldirtybearon: Yeah, that's what I've been doing. Though sometimes I'm tempted because I have so little life anyway, but yeah, not once have I managed to pull that fucking thing off.

Is it weird that I thought the timing for slicing the debris Armstrong throws at you and the precision required wasn't as hard as everyone says? I managed to destroy all that stuff successfully, and it doesn't actually require you to line up with all four squares. So long as you hit 3 you're good. And the time required for that stuff seemed acceptable. I dunno, maybe I'm just that good. I guess the Sundowner fight was enough to prepare me in making precision blade mode cuts quickly.

@yummylee: When you do manage to get him down close to death be ready because he will initiate an attack that will drag you into a QTE sequence that ends the fight. So just be ready for the QTE's at the end of the fight along with having to hit a few Zandatsu's.

@yummylee: Actually, completing that Blade Mode event gives you three or four nanopaste healing items. It's definitely worth it to pull off, because after you have those the rest of that fight is pretty much in the bag.

Also, I agree with others that Sam was disappointingly easy. Nowhere near the level of the rival battle with Jeanne back in Bayonetta... but then again, all of the boss fights in this game are actually pretty easy, on Hard mode at least. Armstrong is only the exception if you started on Hard difficulty for your first run- otherwise you'd be fighting him with an upgraded sword that does more damage and staggers him more quickly, which makes all the difference in the world.

Just wanna say this IGN wiki right here is REALLY packed full of helpful information if your looking to do all the collectibles in Rising. http://www.ign.com/wikis/metal-gear-rising-revengeance?objectid=14354401

The amount of time you have is determined by the difficulty. On normal you get a decent amount of time but on hard it's like less than a second.

If you played on hard and thought that though then yeah, it is weird.

It took me like two minutes to fight him, unless this is some sort of spoilery discussion and we aren't talking about the fight which happens in the desert. If we are, then he was incredibly easy on normal at least.

If you can just stay close to him you can stagger him out of the move where he puts veins of fire on the floor before they erupt. The other fire move, where he lays down walls of fire which cut off the arena, I find it's better to just take that hit. If you're right up on him when he launches that move you take relatively little damage (compared to being bounced around by the fire walls) and the fire seems to go away instantly and he doesn't follow up with the second column.

You really should try to hit the blade mode stuff, it drops three health refills every time on hard.

If you're really struggling and out of health items, you could always restart the chapter and unequip your health items before the Metal Gear fight and equip them for the last battle. The Metal Gear fight has a checkpoint in the middle, so it's easy to get through it without health refills.

Back on topic; I found the bosses to be fun the first time through but I'm really disappointed with them now. They've been the easiest part of the game on my last couple of playthroughs - once you figure them out they never offer any challenge again, they don't seem to have any variations on different difficulties either. I'm sure that they'll be a bitch on Revengeance mode simply because of their damage output but I suspect they'll still be easier than dealing with groups of heavies.

I fucking done it... Only took me just under 3 hours in total it seems, which is less than I imagined >_> It was all thanks to being able to slash that pile of junk he rockets at you, which not only gave me some healing supplies but most importantly the ease of mind. Ironically enough once I had those supplies at the ready it all went along surprisingly problem free... Seems ridiculous to 'celebrate' achieving what everyone else has already accomplished, but after all that time invested, I couldn't help but find beating that heaving hulk of shit all the more gratifying.

Big thanks to everyone who offered advice. Also, back on topic as it were, I still really enjoyed fighting Sam. In fact part of it was because of how grounded it was, and how it wasn't quite so extravagant as, say, fighting Armstrong. The Vergil battles after all are very similar; no inter-battle cutscenes or QTE's, just Dante and Vergil scrapping it out on a mostly flat surface. I will agree that the rivalry was disappointingly underdeveloped, though.

the Jetstream Sam fight reminded me a lot of the Boss fight in MGS3. Just everything you learned through out the game gets put to the test.

Personally the Armstrong fight was amusing with it's own over the topiness, but I didn't think it was difficult compared to jetstream sam.

I thought the hardest fight in the game was Monsoon. Not so much with the parrying, but I had no idea what to do when you couldn't attack him (he would displace his body and doge everything). Either way, I think this game was fantastic and am thoroughly surprised by the games that are coming out early this year (except you Colonial Marines...)

If you have EMP grenades throw them at monsoon.

I liked it, but it felt like it was all over too quick. The boss that I liked the most was Mistral, I liked the music and the three different environments. She's not hard, but I really enjoyed it.

I just love how vanilla the whole fight was. Setting, moveset, music, it all begins in an almost lone wolf and cub vibe, then spirals into high speed - high power blows and destruction.

while I enjoy Mistral more, Sam fight is quite amazing in very subtle ways I think. and that's saying something for a game this insane.

edit: typo Mistral

I was stumped by Armstrong until I realized that if you just sidestep, his attacks will never touch you, which then leaves him open to massive combos.

I think I liked Mistral's the most, because she felt the most "Metal Gear" to me out of all the bosses.

But all the boss fights in this game were fucking terrific.

@starvinggamer: I got a real MGS2 vibe from her, not so much the fight, but that before fighting her you have to go up a set of metal steps kinda like before Fatman. But yeah, she really is the most Metal Gear-ish of all the bosses.

Plus she has a striking resemblance to Fortune from Dead Cell. I think that was intentional, though, for some reason? Like when Raiden says he ''dodged a bullet'', I assumed he's referring to the device that allowed Fortune to dodge bullets.

Also, Monsoon reminded me a lot of The Fear from MGS3, too. Especially the voice.

It was just okay for me, didn't strike me as epic or anything. It felt pretty straightforward. But maybe thats because I was playing on Normal. On that note, I actually felt the whole game was pretty mediocre after finishing it. Maybe another playthrough would change my mind.

Play on hard in my opinion. Hard is a much more frantic and enjoyable beast than normal.