Katana Kami: A Comprehensive Guide

A quick guide to Katana Kami.

Quick Tips

A list of quick tips to help new players while I work on the overall guide.

General

• It is astonishingly hard to get into an unwinnable state in Katana Kami. Play through your failures. You can recover from anything.
  
• You can prostrate to the money lender to get more time, if you need it.
  
• Get used to the various combat mechanics. There are many different approaches to a situation, from the screen-clearing by slow draw attack to dash-canceling to dueling. Learn when to use them through experimentation
  
• If you die, and you have enough money, you can buy your entire inventory back. However, it causes the items to fly out of you, so watch you don't accidentally kill yourself with traps!

Business

• You can overfill orders to earn more money per sword and make the faction happier and more powerful. A great way to get ahead of the money lender.
  
• Traps, explosives, and the like will make factions mad at you. Send them food or fancy gifts to make them happy.
  
• Gifting sake increases faction belligerence, which makes them more likely to fight each other, increasing the demand for swords.
  
• The more factions like you, the more complicated and lucrative their orders get.
  
• Sometimes faction leaders will ask for swords with a very expensive contract, usually ones with multiple titles and high stat values.
  
• If there's an order you can't fulfill, you can send them garbage or fake swords to get it out of your order book, freeing up the slot for a new order that might be easier (at the cost of a rep hit)
  
• Keep Dojima happy.

Swords

• Upgrade durability to maximum on a sword you like first. Then upgrade damage. You can always get more damage on a weapon with the "kill X enemies" titles.
  
• Higher sword quality values means higher base stat values, more gains from reforging, and better skills
  
• Always keep a back-up sword in your locker at home, in case you die and can't recover your inventory
  
• Titles are the main way you level swords. Keep an eye out for swords with titles you think are good.
  
• Repairing a broken sword requires a sword of identical name. Try to swap between swords so you never break one completely.
  
• You can move titles from a level 50 weapon to any other weapon. Levels are gained by hitting enemies, not damage dealt or kills. You can abuse this to level bad swords with good titles very quickly.

Dungeon

• The first dungeon is not the only dungeon. At a certain point, you can unlock the second dungeon by solving a simple puzzle with the post-boss NPC at the bottom floor. I'll let you figure out what the solution is.
  
• All of your player stats - level, HP, vitality - are reset at the beginning of each day. The only way to retain stat increases is to use accessories.
  
• Traps can be thrown at enemies to cause their effects. Bosses usually require multiple hits before the effect takes place.
  
• Hitting an enemy with a sea cucumber is this game's version of "stealing". It causes enemies to drop items you otherwise wouldn't get. Experiment on different enemies to find secret items!
  
• Red portals take you to more dangerous areas, but they bring you to the end faster and always bring you to the monster village before the dungeon blacksmith.
  
• Use the dungeon blacksmith to break down swords into their parts to free up inventory space.
  
• Always try to carry some trash swords of the same style as the sword you use, for fodder at sharpening stones.
  
• Sword energy is kept even if you switch swords. Use this to your advantage.
  
• You regenerate health faster if you stand still.