What the actual fuck.

Been playing this game over the weekend, and throughout the course of this game I've died maybe 5 times. Now I'm at the final boss in what I'm assuming is his final form with no health items. I've been retrying this fight for about an hour. This feels so completely unfair. Apparently you can get health items from the Blade Mode event, but I keep fucking that up and it kills me.

Such bullshit. I'm pretty close to just saying "fuck this game" and putting it on the shelf.

lol I feel your pain. But trust me, I'd say slashing that pile of junk he throws at you (which has four consecutive cutting sections btw) is vital. It gives you four nanopaste things and does like 15%-20% damage, too.

You should start using the dodge-attack btw as well, in case you haven't been already. It's the best way to avoid him when he does his unblockable attacks like when he tries to grapple you, and when he begins to do that shockwave of his, which if you do the dodge move backwards twice, that'll get you out of its range quickly and efficiently. Also, if you reach the part where he begins regenerating his health, you need to blade mode his back.

Alright I did it. But seriously. The fuck. If you don't have health, its almost luck just to get to the blade mode part which not screwing up is vital.

I don't think I even used dodge this whole time. Just been parrying like crazy.

Take advantage of the insane windup time on his fire based attacks. You can beat the crap out of him in no time.

I know what you mean, the game felt like a breeze up until that bossfight. Having used X&Y for blade mode 95% of the time my accuracy was kind of shot. Saying that they do try to warm you up for it with Sundowner.

Glad you got through it though, not looking forward to "The Politics of Silencing Foes" achievement.

Armstrong's a real pain, but he doesn't have a single attack that can't be avoided with the dodge or the parry. It's doing it consistently over the course of what can be a very long battle that'll get you killed.

Of course, I did it without realizing that you could get healing items from the blade mode thing. So I had to beat him with one pretty small health bar, on hard, my first time through the game. Had about a 4 hour marathon into the early morning to finish him off, and still couldn't actually do it until I tried again the next day. At least the music is awesome.

That's strikingly similar to how my first run through against Armstrong went, only I was at least advised about the healing items by cutting down the junk he rockets at you. His theme is indeed pretty awesome, though, even if I was getting a little sick of hearing ''violence breeds violence'' over and over again.

I was having the same problem and probably fucked up on the boss like 100 times trying to cut the falling rocks. It all clicked when I realized that you could set a cutting angle in blade mode, and then press 'X' and it will make a cut on that angle, rather than moving the stick to cut like I had been doing. Made cutting the meteors SO MUCH EASIER and then health was plentiful and it was a cake walk.

This technique with the controls mapped to style D in the options make the precise cutting portions much easier IMO.

It took me some time, but once I got the hang of it, it turned out to be one of the greatest bosses ever!

Hulk dick Chaney was an amazing and hilarious final fight,

i love platinum games

@mrfluke: The music was the best too

I had a bunch of trouble with him too, because I was also in the boat of having no health items. Though, I ended up cheesing it. You're able to quit out and replay any of the previous chapters and gain nanopaste there. Then, if you save and quit and restart the last one, you'll have all the nanopaste from the other chapter. Yes, I had to redo chapter 7, but it's a lot easier the second time. That was what let me beat him. And because I had health items, I could run away from the stuff he throws and not worry about cutting it. I was playing on hard, so I tell myself that I didn't cheese it too badly...

@hammerjelly: Here's one trick I found: when the boss throws the giant object at you, run towards him. Seriously, do it. You won't get any nanopaste, but you'll be able to continue fighting him at least.

@cbarnes86: this whole game, was damm awesome,

pretty much gonna give platinum my full 60 dollars now.

cant wait to see what these guys off all people do on next gen systems.

Wow, finally beat the last boss for the first time after 2 hours. Feels really good! Similar feeling to beating Ornstein and Smough for the first time in Dark Souls. Just posting some thoughts in case it helps anyone that is struggling. Such a great game and I'd hate to see this final boss ruin anyone's experience.

You can just ninja run under the projectiles he throws but on Hard I found this leaves little room for error if you don't start with a full supply of nano-pastes (I had 2 at the start of the battle). Learning how to do the blade mode segment (at least once) makes this fight very manageable because it drops 4 nanopastes if you do it right.

Some tips that helped me.

• Breaking it down into manageable parts really helps. You try to do everything at once and you'll panic and goof it all up.
• First thing is getting your blade mode press done consistently. Wait till you see the projectile coming towards you before pressing it. Once you press it down once you can hold through the whole thing.
• 90% of your concentration should go to the right stick to get the angle right. The thing that I found tricky was how fast you need to do it. What helped is just focusing on the right side of the angle and noting it's position like a clock hand. Then quickly pushed that direction on the right stick. For most of the time this lines it up right way.
• Maybe once out of every group of projectiles you won't be lined up even though your angle is correct. Only then do you use the left stick to move everything up or down.

Other than that, it's just learning his patterns in the normal combat. What helped me was not staying too long right next to him. Dodging back away after a few hits kinda reset things to neutral and gave my mind a breather. Like someone else said his patterns aren't hard but some have tight timing to dodge and you have to perform them repeatedly to be succesful.

Here I thought the game was awesome....until that final boss.

Oh boy, I also arrived in this fight with 0 nanopastes on my first playthrough, was playing on hard. He beat the shit out of me.He beat me so bad that I bled from my ears. My physical form ached in pain.

Then I figured instead of dodging, I should try and see what happens when I zandatsu'd the debris. Up to that point I perfected my dodges and parries to godly precision and memorized his every attack, so those 4 nanopastes spelled his doom.

I fed him his nanomachines. Then I reloaded and fed him once more. I've spent the next 30 mins just reloading and ripping his heart out repeatedly instead of watching the ending. I've put him in the same agonizing singularity he put me through.

Now whenever I get to that part, I can see the fear in his eyes. He remembers what I did, and knows it'll happen again over and over, till I get bored.

I'm beginning to think I'm the only one who not only didn't have a problem with the final boss, but actually enjoyed it.

Man, Platinum Games really did a poor job introducing the player to some pretty vital mechanics, eh? Just finished the game myself and I would just constantly ninja dash out of unblockables and even blockables during the final fight. Parrying his moves were just too risky for me.

Oh yeah, and this game is duuuuuuumb.

The cutting the projectile thing was stupid considering I had played the whole game pressing the buttons during blade mode. I ended up just running out the projectiles way instead of even trying.

I didn't realise how to aim blade mode properly until that fight. I always just kind of flailed around wildly with the right stick because I thought it was stupid to begin with. Continued to not only completely sidestep that issue in the Sundowner fight but actively avoiding having to do it at all throughout the game.

Queue fighting Armstrong with no nanopaste... A boy had to learn, and he had to learn fast. Goddamn that fight was frustrating for a while. Though now I really like it. It's probably one of, if not the best fight in the game.

I'm not surprised that so many people arrive at that boss fight without any nanopaste. During the faux-fights before that on top of Metal Gear Excelius or whatever, it's really difficult to avoid his attacks as you wait for the cutscenes to trigger. That unblockable shockwave attack of his in particular covers nearly the entire area.

The cutscenes trigger once you chip enough of his health too as far as I know. But if you are going for a No Damage bonus you'll have to run from him for like 2 and a half minutes during the second fight before the next cutscene will trigger.

My god, I'm being driven up the wall by this fight. Well, one thing mainly. At the last phase when you get him down to about 160% and he starts throwing debris at you, I can slice the first debris easily but the second one NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER slices!! The green line indicator is always just below the line where you're supposed to cut and I can never angle it as a result. What in the fuck do I do? I've enjoyed Rising for the most part but this is really souring me.

Generally when people have had trouble at the rock-throwing phase its because of two things that aren't necessarily always their fault.

1. Unfamiliarity with how Blade Mode works.

The game rarely pushes you to use it effectively or make it a prerequisite to win a fight. For example, there's a whole phase of the Sundowner fight that one can skip by simply forgoing his explosive shield nonsense (and most do inadvertently skip it from what I've seen). What I personally had trouble with was the fact that I rarely used both analog sticks to cut and slice because I found it unintuitive and goofy. So when the Armstrong fight comes up, I had simply forgotten how the right stick moves your angle more effectively than simply just using the left stick. I still only use the left stick primarily, but I usually switch to my thumb and forefinger for that sequence of the fight so that I can move the right stick where it's needed and press square and triangle to make the actual slice (I loathe doing the actual slicing with the right stick too). There is a control scheme others have told me I could use as well, but I never got around to trying it and since I've been able to Platinum the game otherwise, I don't really feel like getting used to another setup.

2. Recognition that you can simply run under the rocks, and avoid them altogether.

You will miss out on 3-4 nanopaste packs, but you can simply run underneath the rocks when you get control over Raiden again.

Yeah I've spent the game mashing on X and Y instead of using the sticks for that stuff, it just never seemed intuitive enough. And unfortunately I've come into this last boss battle with no nanopastes at all, so having some on deck is pretty much vital for me right now!

edit: more to the point, I am totally able to slice in the direction it's asking - the second slice is just a mirrored version of the one before it. It just physically won't connect with all the four squares you need to cut..only like 2

The problem with the debris Blade Mode bit is that every other occasion in the game, you can just flail wildly. So long as you hit the weak point, you're golden. Whereas the Armstrong fight requires that you cut through the debris with your first slash each time (and also when he's regenerating; he'll counter you if you miss your first slash against his back), otherwise the debris will instantly kill you. Given that that's the only time the game requires some actual precision with Blade Mode, it's a bit of an oversight to not properly prepare the player a little beforehand. Though it's pretty much the only design flaw for what is otherwise a pretty memorable boss battle amidst a game that is filled with great boss battles.

Okay I got it... on the second throw you have to look up with the left stick a bit. That seems like a really poor flaw that shouldn't be there, but hey...there you go,

For me, Armstrong took the game up a level in quality. He was a perfect mix of tongue-in-cheek, Metal Gear Solid crazy, and Platinum. The fight is hard as hell, but it really does reward mastery of the mechanics. Also, the music is pretty great at pumping you up.

I think if the second half of the game wasn't clearly rushed (this thing had what, a year, maybe a year and a half of real dev time?) players would have been more ready for it.

Eh whatever. He gave me some real problems my first time fighting him and I really enjoyed it still.

Uh... you can aim with blade mode at ANY time. Asking you to participate with more than just the minimum amount of work possible is not a "flaw."

This is what video games have done to people. This is what video games have become.

@yummylee

The debris does not instantly kill you, it just does a bit of damage. Sundowner's fight also requires you to properly slash the points on his shields first try or he will counterattack.

You don't get it. The first slice can be done without changing directions at all, and on the second one you only need to inch it up a little bit..it's not as if it's at some hugely different angle..but it's significant enough that it doesn't correspond with how the first slice is presented. It also happens so fast that it was tough for me to rationalise. Hey, that might be my problem and no one else's, but to me the fact that you needed to slightly edge your way in a direction when the initial slice doesn't make you seems like a poor choice.

Plus, of course I knew you could move the blade in any direction -- how on earth do you think I'd have managed to get to the final boss if I hadn't known that? Quit trying to be a smart ass.

@yummylee: Actually, you have to accurately slash Mistral's staff in the blue-tinted weak points or else she'll counterattack and knock you out of Blade Mode. You also have to hit Sundowner's shield at the right angle and direction in one swing or you tend to explode- and after you've separated it you have to take off the arms holding them without touching any of the explosive bits. Armstrong is far from the first time that the game punishes you for swinging blindly instead of taking your time.

@artemesia: For some reason I wasn't notified of your reply, but no, during my first playthrough on Hard mode (and, well, any other following playthroughs at that) the debris would instantly kill me every time should I fuck it up. If you have nanopaste handy then sure, you can survive the impact. Without it, though, it's a one hit kill.

I remember being able to swing wildly during the minstral boss fight. Well, not wildly exactly, but it afforded me a few tries to break her staff before it would cancel it out. I can't even remember any scripted blade mode moments during the Sundowner boss fight, though it's been a while and Sundowner was such a ridiculously easy fight that it admittedly never stood out as when I fought against the others.

@yummylee: Actually, the debris Armstrong flings does about 150 Percent damage. My first time through I only had 140 percent health because I'd missed a lot of health-increasing items throughout the levels and hadn't put a ton of money into my HP bar, so in that case they did kill me in one hit- but it'd have been equally likely for someone to end up with enough health to live through it, if only barely.

Also, Mistral isn't nearly as punishing when you miss her staff's weakpoints, but you do have to aim- or should be aiming, rather. No reason to swing like a wild man when you've got precision slicing, but maybe that's just me. Sundowner, on the other hand, has a shield that explodes if you touch it. Dodging around him and attacking him from behind is both valid and perhaps the easiest way to take him out, but it's also kinda boring. Going into Blade Mode provides you with clear, straight indicators across his shield of structural weaknesses- line it up right and you can cleave through his defenses and get a chance to make a few more aimed slashes to hopefully lop off the arms holding his shields. Taking them all off takes you to the second phase of his boss battle, which a lot of people never saw because they didn't have the patience to take out the shield the normal way. Being able to beat him through dodging instead is, in my opinion, a bit of a design issue, because it's both more entertaining and more appropriate to slice through his shields.

You all are aware that you don't have to Blade Mode the debris? That you can just run forwards under the debris and it won't touch you? Just checking.

If you really want the nano-pastes from doing successful debris cuts then fair enough, but I'd hate for someone to have trouble completing the game just because of the debris section when you can dodge it rather than get frustrated over it.

I consider myself an above average gamer and typically can finish most fights in one or two tries but this was one of the worst fights simply cause of the debris. The problem with the fight is that the game on Normal difficulty doesn't force you to use any of the techniques that make this fight easier. On normal you can parry your way through the majority of the game with pretty good success. I vaguely remember them teaching me to dodge but never once used it cause the game is mostly parry parry parry. Also the game never enforces you to blade mode objects that require more than one cut point which is what ultimately frustrated me during the debris. Not only do you have to cut an object with multiple points but it requires you to do 3 of them in a row in a fairly quick succession.

So there I was in the exact same boat as the OP. At the final boss with no health items and basically could not get past. Finally got the timing down on the Blade Mode for the debris and breezed through him but holy crap did it frustrate me. Probably cause I did a balanced spec of always upgrading my blade, life and energy and probably cause I half sucked at blade mode simply cause the game never enforces the player to practice it.

Overall liked the game but I won't be playing it again.

Well what do you expect from Mecha Megazord Dick Cheney. He don't play fair.

This fight fucking sucks.

edit: Just finished it. What a frustrating battle. Got a lot easier once I realized I could use the x and square button for the dodge slash.