Ghost of Tsushima: How to beat Lord Shimura? Video guide Ghost of Tsushima guide, walkthrough
Last update: 21 May 2024
This page of the Ghost of Tsushima guide has a strategy for duel with the game's final boss, Lord Shimura. You will find out when you face the final boss, Lord Shimura's attacks, and how to defeat him.
The confrontation with the final boss takes place in the game's final main quest - The Tale of Lord Shimura. The duel doesn't begin until the later part of the quest - after riding Shimura to the Sakai family cemetery.
You can fight Lord Shimura only with your katana. Remember that you can use all your combat techniques. However, you can't use any gadgets or ranged weapons.
Lord Shimura is the best katana user among all the bosses you have faced so far. Despite that, this fight won't be extremely challenging.
Regular katana attacks performed by Shimura are the easiest to parry/dodge. Unfortunately, he uses them rarely.
The boss also uses single blue attacks such as katana stab. Remember, you can parry blue attacks only when you have purchased the Unyielding Sword Parry skill. Otherwise, you will have to avoid them.
The biggest threat, of course, is Lord Shimura's red attacks. You have to dodge them or avoid by rolling.
The boss's combos can cause the most problems. Lord Shimura primarily uses two combinations:
- 3x red attack - He telegraphs this combination can be recognized by Shimura sheathing his katana for a brief moment.
- 2x red attack + 1x blue attack - After dodging/rolling twice, you can either take a chance and try to parry the blue attack or avoid all 3 attacks.
Remember, you activate perfect parry by pressing L1 at the last moment, and perfect dodges by pressing the Circle right before the attack hits you. Both of these mechanics require you to own the right techniques.
Perfect parry or perfect dodge will trigger slow-motion for a brief moment. This will help you go into offensive and deplete a lot of Shimura's health points. This will make the fight shorter.
The duel with Shimura ends when you deplete all of his health points. You will have to decide the fate of the main character's uncle - the available variants are described on the Endings page.