Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance – How to Defeat The Final Boss

While you probably thought Metal Gear Excelsus was the final boss, you still have to defeat the person piloting him. At first you might think he is a push over, but you’re in for a shock. Not only is going to be a long battle, it’s also one you can lose by making a simple mistake. With that being said, the end boss is also one of the easier bosses if you know what you’re doing.

Editors Note: This guide is spoiler free, so don’t fret if you’re concerned about ruining the final fight. However, don’t watch the video guide at the end if you want to avoid spoilers.

General Tips

• When you see a blue outline around your screen, it’s your prompt to go blade mode.
• Do not rush the quick blade events! Typically you’ll have more than enough time to do them, plus rushing them can result in you wasting time / taking damage.
• Don’t get greedy. Several bosses will take FAR less damage if you don’t attack them at the right time, so you’re really just putting yourself in harms way.

General Boss Tips

• Phase 1 can be timed out and you don’t need to attack.
• Phase 2 can be timed out and you don’t need to attack.
• Phase 3 typically starts the same every time, use this to your advantage.
• Unless you see flames around his fist, you must avoid the attack to prevent taking damage.
• If you get hit by one of his QTE grabs, you will lose your sword. You must STOP moving to pick your sword up and doing so will leave you open to attacks. Only attempt to pick it up if you’re certain he can’t hit you.
• On hard+ his attacks are a little different.
• Finishing a blade time event will cause 4 med kits to drop.
• You must hit the red box if he starts to glow green, failing to do so will result in you taking damage.
• Don’t bother using items on him.
• Do not attempt to use aerial attacks on him. They will just result in you taking damage.
• Do not use the parry on him, since it will be counter productive.
• You can avoid the quick sword events by running away from them. This isn’t a foolproof method to get past this part, but it might help if you’re having problems.
• If at any point you knock him down, you can abuse blade mode to do an absurd amount of damage to him. Be warned that he can cutscene out of it (you will also take damage) if you try to abuse it, but it won’t happen if he is locked into an action (attack, jumping up, running away, etc).
• Similar to Monsoon, his blade time events are timed out. They typically occur at 150%, 100% and 50% or less.
• While you can bring him down to 0.01%, you STILL must do the final 2 quick time events to kill him.
• You must flawlessly complete all three parts if you want the no damage bonus / trophy for beating him perfectly.

Phase 1

Similar to the first time you fight Sam on the train, you simply can’t win this fight. You will do roughly .01% damage with every slash, so you’re left with two options. You can either end the scene by damaging him enough (it’s like 5%) or you can just time it out.

Phase 2

If the first phase wasn’t annoying enough, you now need to fight him without your sword. However, this is the only difference between the two phases. For those looking to do a no damage run, I’ve heard mixed reports that you need to win this part by damaging him, so keep this in mind.

Phase 3

This phases always starts with the same move, which can be easily avoided by just running around him. After he completes the move, wait a little bit to see if he’s going to do it again and then run at him. From here it’s all about learning to read his moves, which are pretty straightforward. Every now and then he will start to recover his life by glowing green, which you need to counter by running around him and slashing a certain spot. This will stun him and ideally give you enough time to prevent him from doing further attacks. Not a whole lot more to say about this boss, but if you’re looking for an easy way to beat him, check out the video here.