How to make Kuma ridiculously easy

[Arython]

Read the bolded part if you only care about the pattern.

I noticed that a lot of people are saying that they find Kuma very difficult on hard, and some even find him difficult on normal. Kuma parries a lot, is quite fast, and has several attacks that are nearly impossible to consistently avoid without lots of practice, so this is understandable.

Some guides I have read make it sound way harder than it is, relying on multiple patterns, parries, etc. I found a way to beat Kuma without ever parrying or memorizing complex patterns - in other words, my method takes virtually all the skill needed away and reduces it to what is basically button mashing.

The only two buttons you are going to need are X and LT. The pattern is very simple:

1. Get close to Kuma (I just charge straight at him)
2. Do 3 X attacks in a row
3. As soon as that 3rd X attack lands, hit LT and do a horizontal focus slash (X)
4. Go back to step 2

During the cutscenes that occur when he takes enough damage and says something, you will obviously need to go back to step 1. Also, if you mess up, do not panic, just take the hit and keep going.

That is it. No parrying, no dodging, etc.

This pattern puts him in a loop that he cannot get out of (barring forced cutscenes) except in the final fight. What happens for all the fights before he goes down to one sword is that your first 3 swings will either land or be parried, and as soon as you go into focus mode he will prepare his 2-handed cross sword slash, which can be recognized by him crossing his swords around his body and crouching a bit. If you do the focus slash as soon as your sword glows, your hit will land before his does, causing massive damage to him. He will stagger back a bit, but by then you are in your next combo and the cycle repeats.

In the final fight when he loses his mask and goes to one sword, he is no longer quite as predictable so you will get hit a few times. The nice thing, however, is that eventually he will basically glitch out after you land a focused blow on him and stumble away with his back exposed and, if you keep up the barrage using the same pattern, he will never recover. This has happened four out of four times for me. I just beat him again now and in the last 10 seconds of the fight I got 3 combos in on his back without him ever turning around, parrying, or fighting back.

[Vanilla Coke Zero]

thanks, i'll give this a try. tried the parrying method and it sucks. hope this works.

[Gariom]

I'll have to try this. I simply cannot beat him, I got as far as the third rock whirlwind thing he uses before I just gave up. I could keep it up until he uses that move where he spins his swords and hits you a lot, it's also unblockable.

EDIT: I can verify that this works, thanks for the tip! But be warned, I found that focus mode stopped working from the last fight in the building and then onwards. I had to wait for an opening after he finished his attacks.

[ValentineOO1]

Awesome. I was needing to finish this game up and mainly just needed to do my hard run through. I'll definatly use this when I come up to him this time around.

[OMGLOL1111]

nice find, wish i got that before

anyway, worked fine with the parry pattern method, but i needed many tries

[Th4t_T4||_GuY]

I wish I read this before fighting him on Hard Mode. I did something close to this, but he kept dodging and countering, so I actually found the damn pattern he uses and dodged and everything just to beat him. Took me like 3 hours. T.T

[DocRevolt]

This works a lot better than the parrying technique. Thanks a lot, this is a bullshit fight and this game really screwed up the afro samurai name.

[BosmaniaK]

hey this method works ten times better than the parry method...and still that method is talked about more so.... here an up for this thread.

but now I'm getting raped at the maskless form

[xMANNY FRE5Hx]

This method worked great! This boss is cake using this strat

during the single sword fight I kinda had to dodge is power attacks tho. still easy as pie.

Thanks!

[Fried Cola]

guide is wrong. Strategy would not work for me at all, Kuma would counter out of my focus X.

the guide ought to say focus . Perfect or not, it seems to connect with Kuma every time and you can follow up with 3 back into another focus

doesn't work on maskless Kuma tho.