Yuki is a Beast

[NZ_Balrog]

Yuki is a beast.

I completed all the Achievements for all levels, and loved playing the game so much I was looking for other challenges to make additional play-throughs interesting. I realised on any level which had Yuki available I generally had her killing between 70-85% of the enemies on a level. It occurred to me maybe it would be a fun challenge to go through all the levels with Yuki in them and have her responsible for 100% of the kills. So I did it!

https://imgur.com/a/SxX0MMe

Every level which has Yuki as an available character has been completed with her getting 100% kills. This includes all enemies and all hostile civilians. I realised you could game the system by generating constant alerts by being detected and another 3 extra guards would spawn. Theoretically you could have an near limitness number of kills if you kept doing that? At any rate, I didn't do any of that. All the kill totals are for originally spawned enemies and hostile civilians only. The only point worth mentioning is on L05 (Lord Yabu's Estate), after you poison him a number of new guards come out to go on patrol. I didn't try to run out of the estate before he died (like is required for the Achievement) since this is a normal part of the game, so the kills on that level include all those guards. The only level where I didn't kill 100% of the enemies is L13 (Sunpu Castle) where there are the samurai in the fenced off sections of the tower and at the very top level. I'm assuming it's simply not possible to kill them; no one has enough shots from the hand cannons and you can't reach the ones behind the fences. But every other enemy on every other level was killed.

There were definitely some big challenges with this. L10 (Mount Tsuru Prison) was pretty tough in some areas, as was L09 (Kage-sama's Camp). One of the toughest areas might have been L13 with the firing range area and the little area next to that leading into the garden where two samurai and one normal guard are in close proximity. For that small area I found that having Takuma shoot the tiles on the roof to kill the two samurai in one go evidently doesn't count as kills for another character, so it didn't ruin the Yuki run. Presumably other types of indirect kills (like pushing/throwing rocks onto enemies) don't count as kills for a specific character, but I haven't tested this. This was a bit lucky, because the hand cannons don't have the range to hit the roof tiles so you're reliant on Takuma's rifle here; otherwise, I don't know how you'd incapacitate two samurais and have Yuki kill the extra guard all at the same instant.

A lot of other general strategy proved useful towards having Yuki be the only character with kills, and eliminating everyone from the map. I consider her to be the most effective and powerful at eliminating enemies with her ability to pull most enemies away from their standard patrol route or standing position. I found I used Hayato's distraction with the rock toss a fair amount, but Aiko's vision impairing, Mugen's sake, and Takuma's Kuma far less. With a Yuki-only play-through for kills, using the other characters' distraction techniques helped a bit in some specific situations. Even so, when playing the game normally you might use a distraction and then use one of the other characters to perform the kill. Couldn't do that here. So sometimes I'd use the other characters to just knock an enemy unconscious and then have Yuki run over to finish the kill. Patrolling groups of three soldiers presented some other challenges along these lines, by getting them all knocked out at the same time and then letting Yuki kill everyone unconscious. This could be especially difficult if one of the three guards in a group was a samurai.

Anyway, just wondering if anyone else has played the game this way. Either with Yuki or another character. (If you've done it with another character and were successful, I'd really like to know how that went.) If you have any questions about levels or strategies in specific areas, I'm happy to discuss how I got through.

[Bertie]

I've never tried it this way, however it's an interesting challenge!

By the way there is a cheat to get all the characters into a level, so if you used that you could give the other levels a go with her :)

[NZ_Balrog]

Really doubt there's a cheat like this. The levels do seem really well designed to make it challenging with the characters provided. If you weren't trying to do a challenge like what I've described, simply having Mugen around to sweep through so many areas (simple kills on samurai, sword wind for groups, etc.) would have made lots of areas much easier. But seems like things are purposefully designed so Mugen's powers aren't OP by having him available all the time.

[Bertie]

Originally posted by NZ_Balrog:

Really doubt there's a cheat like this.

Not sure why, since I said there is one:

1. Start a mission

2. Once game starts, hit ESC or back to bring up the menu

3. Type the word "honorless" in the menu. There is no text bar or anything, just type it in the menu itself. A message will then pop up and say achievements can't be unlocked when cheating.

4. Exit the menu, and then hold "insert" and the number. 1 = Hyato, 2 = Yuki, 3 = Mugen, 4 = Aiko, and 5 = Takuma

[NZ_Balrog]

Oh geesh, I read it as you asking if there was one, not stating so. Wow! Just tried this. Thanks, fren. You've just given me more levels to play this way. :D

Will also have to try reincarnating Mugen on later levels when he's no longer supposed to be around. Any idea if this also works?

[Bertie]

Originally posted by NZ_Balrog:

Will also have to try reincarnating Mugen on later levels when he's no longer supposed to be around. Any idea if this also works?

Not sure, I can't see why not

[NZ_Balrog]

I completed L01, L04, and L11 with Yuki by spawning her into the level. :) L01 and L04 weren't very difficult at all. But L11 was harsh. Multiple groups of 5 patrolling guards! And the central marketplace which is lit up extremely well, has groups of 2 or 3 people standing in a triangle (so they're covering lots of angles), and many samurai stationed in it.

The first time I played L11 through I just thought the 5 guards together and the central marketplace were going to be too tough to complete without using Takuma's sleeping bomb, so I used a total of five in certain areas. Then I thought I'd give it an honest try without the sleeping bombs. I think it took about 4 hours, but I did it.

The groups of 5 patrolling guards I handled in the same way I would typically do three. Just calling them off their patrol and continuing to do Quicksave/Quickload until one guard got separated enough from the rest to be killed and hidden. Repeat process to get the 4th, then we're back at the standard "easy" group of 3 to deal with.

For the marketplace, I siphoned off as many normal guards and civilians from the edges, calling them into darker side streets. When there were no more I could reach with the flute without walking directly into bright light and a view cone, I had to get more strategic. There were multiple instances where I would use both the rock and sneezing powder on the same group of civilians to have enough time to kill and move a body just out of their vision. Once that was finally done, the other island (with massage and baths) wasn't that difficult at all. Yuki could pull off and eliminate 95% of the enemies there without any help whatsoever. Just a few instances where Hayato's rock helped with a momentary distraction.

[ฅ⁠^⁠•⁠ﻌ⁠•⁠^⁠ฅ]

have you ever tried using Kuma to lure the entire map of lurables into a spot and throw a bomb with Takuma? (or lure them to a samurai or strawhats as they are not lurable)
That is a challenge by itself. :P

[DungeonRyu]

I usually use Hayato to kill everyone, you can lure enemies to you by causing panic from civilians. That way you can even kill 5 men patrols using only one character. Civilian panic is a less reliable but more universal lure. It also has further reach. You can also knock out civlians and drag them to a potential lure spot, then wait for the panic.

I tried to do Noboru castle Hayato solo, but found out that the section with 3 Straw Hats on top is impossible with him. I can kill all of them, but they still raise the alarm.

[quaidis]

Wanted to chime in and agree that Yuki is super awesome.