I somehow passed this training by sheer luck. I can't seem to get the parry to reliably trigger. The abilities subscreen says R1+triangle, the tool tip says R1+Circle, and my personal experience is that I'm pretty sure both worked??? And my heat bars were maxed out the entire time, since it was the training segment.

How can this be done reliably? Not that I'm good enough to recognise and apply it, but I feel like a total dope for whiffing on the training so hard.

r1 & circle is correct. Needs to be triggered as the enemy is in midswing with 3 heat bars and it can't be used once you're hit (i.e. can't break a combo with it). I don't see anything specifically wrong in your description of what you're doing, but the move seemed kinda pointless to me personally because I almost never go to 3 heat bars in thug stance.

@veektarius: Yeah I didn't find it very helpful even at the time of the training. I'm much more a fan of Kiryu's Rush Style redirection move, since that doesn't require any heat. I'm not sure if it's something fundamentally different about Majima's style or if the enemies are somehow harder, but I am completely useless in combat with him. All of his moves feel like they have such a huge wind-up and it seems to me that he's really easily staggered. Kiryu's stances all feel very loose and dynamic in what you can do with them but with Majima, I find myself really struggling to figure out an effective strategy.

@the_nubster: For Majima: Slugger stance, Triple Square Triangle combo, win. That move takes you through the entire game on his side.

Majima's Breakdance style will make mincemeat of most enemies.

@the_nubster: Funny you say that. I don't like Thug much, but I found the other two styles way more fun than anything Kiryu had to offer (though beast is fun when you have props to play with).

@veektarius: I like Brawler a whole lot. it just seems like there are a lot more options available, especially since there seems to be a heat action for nearly every stance in Brawler. Thug feels a little more limited as a basic style and it doesn't really do anything that Slugger and Breaker don't do. Even so, I like Rush better than Breaker for the i-frame dodge weaving and the extra quicksteps you get, and Beast beats Slugger since you can make a weapon out of anything in a pinch instead of relying on a bat or whatever you have in your inventory. Assuming there's a loose sofa or moped laying around, of course.

@xel: I like the Breaker style a lot in the street fights! For the most part anyway. Sometimes the initial swings are a little slow to start up, especially from empty heat, but my real problem is that a lot of the heat actions don't feel contextually appropriate. They just kind of pop up and its hard to place where the game is going to decide a heat action belongs.

@takayamasama: I try to do that as much as I can and it does well in the basic street fights, but as soon as there's an enemy with any sort of hyper armor or heavy attack, he gets knocked down before he can get into the nunchaku swing. That's how I did all of the weapon training though, the teacher hardly even touched me.

I'm feeling your pain @the_nubster been on the final Komeki art for about 20 minutes now trying to get this move down, I need 2 more times and the first was through sheer luck!

The timing window for this seems absurd.

Edit: My whinge paid off and I did it shortly after posting, still seems very difficult to pull off consistently :S

Actually never used that style. Seemed more like a goof then anything useful so didn't spend any points in it. Maybe i should have.

Majima's breakdance style is by far the most dps he can do, even single target. You'll learn to appreciate it if you ever do the later climax battles. The only thing it isn't good for is Mr. Shakedown. Hit square until your hands hit the ground then immediately start spamming triangle. On bosses i'll switch to slugger as they are getting up just to heat move them.

For kiryu his best is beast style with 3 bars of heat. You don't want to use heat moves because you get more defense with more heat (and attack? not sure).

Of course, all the styles can easily get you through the game. Those two are really broken once you learn how to use them though.

That style is easily the strongest in the game. It has a huge aoe and does a ton of damage. It also stunlocks most bosses. It`s kinda broken... I`ll see myself out.

@noobsmog: In my experience, Beast is the straight-up best style. As soon as you can gets your mitts on an item to swing around, the damage you can put out is insane. And once it's upgraded so the guard move has more defense and stun resistance, there's almost nothing that can really touch you, save Mr. Shakedown or a grab move. For Majima, Breaker is definitely my go-to for most fights, but if you're starting off at zero heat I can find it a little difficult to get into a combo just because of the wind-up time of the first move.

God dammit, this game is awesome. I'm getting pumped just thinking about it.

@the_nubster Yeah beast honestly might be the most broken fighting style in all of the games.

This is why I don't even really use it. It's really mindless.

Thug has some cool moves but in the end I prefer all Kiryu's fighting styles to Majima's.

For me Beast can become a bit mindless too but I love watching the Heat moves play out so I enjoy it for sure. The group Heat move in it where yous wing the guy around rules.