99 Spirits Walkthrough

An incredibly basic guide with as few spoilers as possible.

Preface

This guide is intended to point you in the right direction, and help you with puzzles and choices. It is not an achievement guide, and it spoils as little story as it possibly can.

If this is your first playthrough, I suggest that you talk to everybody you can after every chapter, especially Mr. Merchant.

Make sure to save very often, at least once per map change, as this game does have the tendency to crash. If you are accessing this guide during your game, I'd advise you NOT to use the Steam Overlay, and to put the game in Windowed mode instead of Alt-Tabbing, as both of these can crash your game.

If I have missed anything in this guide, or if you would like areas clarified, feel free to comment.

Chapter 1

After the Prologue

Make your way to the very end of Shura Valley. You must fight at least one Tsukumogami for the yellow marker to appear.

After Obtaining the Gokon Sword

At the first choice you encounter, answer "Yes" for the Asura path, or "No" for the Deva path.
A forced fight will occur with a Katana and Fan Tsukumogami.

Chapter 2

Tamagami's Shrine

Make your way to the end of the map, and fight the forced battle.

Be sure to revisit Tamagami's Shrine often to upgrade your gems.

Chapter 3

Haunted Castle

Make your way to the end of the map and the yellow marker. Head backwards to another yellow marker. Inspect the green marker to find the lit candle.
Capture a Fan or Flute Tsukumogami to continue past the candle.

The First Courtesan

Interact with the yellow marker.
Capture a Beads or Drum Tsukumogami to learn the rumour.

Haunted Castle

Head back to the end of the map and interact with the yellow marker.
Head backwards again to inspect the other green marker and find the unlit candle.
Capture a Lamp or Lantern Tsukumogami to continue past the unlit candle.

The Second Courtesan

(Same procedure as with the first)
Interact with the yellow marker.
Capture a Beads or Drum Tsukumogami to learn the rumour.

Haunted Castle

Make your way to the end of the map for a final time. Interact with the yellow marker.
Tell it the new rumour. The choice about demonic possession.
A forced fight will occur with Screen and a Katana Tsukumogami.

Chapter 4

Ikusagahara

Make your way to the end of the map and interact with the yellow marker.
Fight all three red Tsukumogami.
The Green ghost requires a Naginata, the Red ghost requires a Katana, and the Blue ghost requires a Spear.

Return to the yellow marker.

Chapter 5

Craftsman District

Fight all red Tsukumogami, making your way to the end of the map.
A forced battle will occur with a Katana Tsukumogami.

Another forced battle will occur against Yatsu no Kami. You will lose this battle.

Chapter 6

Craftsman District

Reach the yellow marker at the end of the maps, repeat twice more.

This is your second choice. Answer "Yes" for the Asura path, or "No" for the Deva path.

A forced battle will occur with a Katana Tsukumogami.

Another forced battle. After revealing all three secrets: "Capitol" = Shogun's wife, "Mother" = Savior, "Cart" = Cooperating you will fight the Basin Tsukumogami.

Chapter 7

Open Sea

Make your way to the yellow marker at the end of the maps.
Capture a Wand Tsukumogami and approach the sea area of the map.

Go backwards to the yellow marker.
Ignore the green marker and continue to the end of the maps to the next yellow marker.

A forced battle will occur with a Mirror Tsukumogami.

Chapter 8

Tavern District

Find the yellow marker. A forced battle will occur. The Tsukumogami that appear are randomized, but they will all be related to Food.

Collect all of the green markers. Capture a Pot and Cauldron Tsukumogami. If you don't find one on your first battle, simply Retreat and try again, the Tsukumogami randomize.

Return to the yellow marker.

Advance to the next yellow marker. Capture a Stove and Pot Tsukumogami.
Go backwards to collect the Rice green marker (ignore the other two), and continue backwards to the other green marker.

Return to the yellow marker, then continue to the next yellow marker.
A forced battle will occur against a China Tsukumogami.

Chapter 9

Craftsman District

Fight all of the red Tsukumogami.

A forced fight will occur with a Screen and Katana Tsukumogami. When fighting the Katana, you must Identify it until you get the entire message.

Fight the red Tsukumogami. One will be the Azusa Bow. Defend until able to capture.

Fight the last red Screen Tsukumogami and use Soul Equip as soon as possible.

Chapter 10

Heian Capital

Fight the red Tsukumogami.

Reach the next two yellow markers.
A forced fight will occur with randomized Tsukumogami.

Go to the yellow marker.
Avoid the red Tsukumogami they are actually guards, and will kick you out if you run into them while investigating all of the green markers.

Fight all of the red Tsukumogami.
A forced battle will occur with a Katana Tsukumogami. Identify all three misconceptions.

This is your third choice. Answer "Yes" for the Asura path, or "No" for the Deva path.

It is strongly suggested to save your game at this point for easy reload.

Ignore the red Tsukumogami, but make sure they do not touch the green markers. You can do this by strategically moving around the map so that they follow you, although sometimes due to random placement it is inevitable that they will land on a green marker. You will have to reload if this happens.

Chapter 11

Castle Tsukumogami

Check out the green marker if you need to shop, if not, find the yellow marker.
A forced fight will occur with a Spear Tsukumogami.

This is your fourth choice. Answer "Yes" for the Asura path or "No" for the Deva path.
A forced fight will occur with Yatsu no Kami. After a few turns, use Soul Equip to end the battle.

Chapter 12

Castle Tsukumogami

Go to the yellow marker at the end of the map.
A forced battle will occur against a Left Leg, Right Leg, Rib Cage, Right Arm, Left Arm, and Skull Tsukumogami.

You now have two options: fight, or don't fight. If you chose the Asura path, your decision is already made for you. If you chose the Deva path, you should choose to fight, and if you obtained the armor you will be forced to fight and capture the God of Change.

Now enjoy the credits, and stick around for the Epilogue.

Hints & Tips

These are general tips and suggestions for making the game a little easier.

Suggested Tsukumogami

1 = any, I generally leave this spot open for the Azusa Bow, then grab the next Tsukumogami I find when the spot is freed up.
2 = Pot, heals a large amount of HP each turn, and boosts attack, defense, evasion, and accuracy
3 = Silk, a 50% chance to counterattack, and a 50% chance to evade attacks
4 = Wand, 1/3 chance to lower enemy attack, and 50% chance for enemy to fail to heal
5 = Katana, attacks after you attack, and deals heavy damage.

Having them in this order is incredibly beneficial, as using their Yin and Yang skills will not drain the gem. (excluding 1, unless you use a Speed type Tsukumogami.)

Getting the Secret Armor

Because I had an unfortunately difficult time getting this, even with checking the 100% achievement guide, I am going to add this information. This is suggested for NG+ due to difficulty.

1. Follow the Deva Path.

2. Before Chapter 9, be absolutely sure to talk to Kagerou completely, and then talk to Soujun completely. This will ensure that Soujun talks about Rourin.

3. Make sure to destroy all of the skulls in every map before you go to Subjugate Souzen in chapter 11, there are skulls hiding behind the Great Beasts, so you must be a high enough level to defeat them.

4. After destroying all of the skulls, be sure to look for the following Tsukumogami that only appear after their respective area has been cleared of skulls.

Dustpan - Shura Valley
Bell - Tamagami Shrine
Sutra - Haunted Castle
Oxcart - Ikusagahara
Mirror - Ocean
Kettle - Tavern District
Lyre - Castle Tsukogami
Lute - Castle Tsukogami

(SOURCE: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/688158-99-spirits/66597913)

These should be the last Tsukumogami you are missing if you are on NG+ and attempted to index them all on your first time through.

5. Destroy all of the skulls at Tsukumogami Castle before fighting Souzen.

If all of these conditions are met, you will receive the armor. You may have to fight a random battle before fighting Soujun for the armor to appear.

How to Tell a Katana and Naginata Apart

Other than the obvious NAGI vs KA, there are a few less obvious hints:

Katana = blade, slashing
Naginata = pole, cutting

[Xenodochy]

Got the normal ending on the first playthrough and then I decided that I'd need a guide to get the best and worst outcomes possible, among others.

I wouldn't have managed to get the nifty armour set myself without this guide, so thanks a lot for that! (I didn't know that there were those post-skull-cleanse tsukumogami). I had a stupid moment wondering when the fanfare would start when I cleansed the last skull on my third playthrough before I remembered I was going for Asura. Damn. Too bad.

I didn't expect the very first in-game choice to be that significant, so the guide was a big help. So, thanks for writing this.

Not sure if anyone else is reading this, but my go-to Attack tsukumogami was the kusarigama for its paralyse ability. This is because I hit the defence-counter cycle on pretty much 99% of the time on the Normal-Normal difficulty level, and when I do that, I get a bonus stun/paralyse on enemies (pretty sure it was also due to the weapon and not just the combo).

[PogChampGuy]

The unlit candle wont let me past even though i captured a lantern?

[Ariandel]

Max level is 99, I think I hit it at playthrough 5 or 6? In good news about playing the game so many times, when you do reach max level, every battle is pretty much a joke, so at that point I could just concentrate on making the right choices.

[I've been traumatized O__O]

9 playthroughs. You have my respect! I played this 3 times to get 100% thanks to your guide + the 2 others. Although i'm really curious what's the maximum level Hanabusa could get? I'm at 65 at the end of play 3.

[Ariandel]

That was entirely my bad about saying Soujun instead of Souzen. This has been fixed in the guide. It was probably because their names were so similar.

The reason I mentioned only Bell and Oxcart are because when I finished my first playthrough, those were literally the only ones I was missing, and I wasn't aware that there were other spirits that only appeared after destroying the skulls (I always destroyed the skulls as soon as I possibly could throughout the game). However, I will list the other spirits briefly. As you said, if someone wants more information on the Tsukumogami, they can reference the spirit index guide.

Thank you so much for the feedback and corrections. I actually wrote this guide because I literally had to play through the game 9 times to 100% it because of various mistakes I made throughout my playthroughs, and hoped that people would benefit from something simple that didn't spoil the whole game.

[I've been traumatized O__O]

Hey I just want to point this out, there are some things not mentioned or confusing in this guide. I know one can get a better picture reading the other guides like 100% achievement and Spirit Index guide. There are those who stick to one guide (like me). So here goes, to get the secret armor one of the conditions is to index 100% of the spirit. There are hidden tsukumogamis in each areas that only appear after all the skulls are destroyed, (not only bell and oxcart, but those are good head start) >> users of this guide can refer to the spirit index guide for that.

and we're not fighting soujun period. It's monk souzen. That got me confused haha. I missed the armor on my 1st play partly because of that (another part becoz i didn't complete 100% spirit index and I chose an asura choice at start before referring to this guide)

Overall thank you for this wonderful guide. And oh this game DOES frustrate people with its many bugs glitches and hangs every now and then at random.

[Ariandel]

I never ran into that particular bug myself (though I ran into a heck of a lot of other ones). Glad you were able to find a solution to it.

[I've been traumatized O__O]

Edit: so I found the solution to the forums. The bug makes the dark panel not appear if you warp straight to the temple, say no and walk to it.

[I've been traumatized O__O]

Heyy.. I wonder if i ran into a bug. On my 1st playthru I already beat those great beasts but I can't destroy all the skulls at Tamagami Shrine. Soujun still ask me to go there. There's no more skulls. I even broke the one behind the level 30 boss. What am I missing?

[White Sheep]

I just finished my first play through and got the good and bad endings. I didn't read the guide before hand so I don't have the armor available. While I would like to see the perfect ending, I think it is too much trouble now. About fighting the Beasts, I was able to fight them with about half of the recommended level. I consider Kanata (for high damage and speed up gem filling), Jug (for nullifying unblockable damage and healing), and ward (for lowering healing and destroying skulls) essential. I also used pot but that is just additional bonus. I don't think that is necessary to arrange all of them into the right order. I would recommend putting katana into the correct gem to help deal non-stop high damage, but don't go through the trouble for the rest. I think this is a good guide as it covers path selection details which I did not pay much attention to.