If you have made it this far in Sekiro Shadows Die Twice, I salute you! If you are stuck on the final boss then you have come to the right place. After a good bit of trial and error, I have come up with some direction of what you can do to get through Genichiro and Saint Isshin. Follow that and you will be seeing one of the *four endings* in no time.
Sekiro Shadows Die Twice Genichiro and Sword Saint Isshin Boss
This is your third bout with the Sasuke Uchiha wannabe so by now you should be well aware of his moveset. He does have a new attack with his Mortal Blade but it is very easy to just sprint away from. Here is my way of exploiting his moveset and wrecking him easily.
Run upto Genichiro, he will always start with a Mortal Blade draw. Run back from to a safe distance, there is a 90% chance he will leap at you with a Thrusting Slash. You will want to Mikiri Counter this to eat a chunk of his Posture Meter.
From then on out, you need to press the attack. Keep the tiniest delays in your R1 presses. What this will do is keep baiting him to initiate an attack that you can interrupt and do more damage.
Occasionally, he will leap up for a downwards slash which you can deflect. After deflecting, he will either Thrust Stab that you can once again Mikiri Counter or Sweep Slash that you can jump on his head to counter.
By now, his Posture Meter should be down. If it is not, just rinse and repeat and you will steadily get used to wrecking the boss every time you see him. The fearsome Prologue boss is now just a gum in your shoe that mildly impedes you. Be sure to get through Genichiro, you will need all your Healing Gourds.
Sword Saint Isshin
Here is where the real fight begins. After you are done gawking gramps climb out of his kid’s corpse like something out of Bloodborne, get to work!
Rush him immediately – not too close though. Halfway to him, he will initiate a very long drawn sheath-slash move. You can avoid this by sprinting in a distant circle until he misses. Get a quick charged hit in. After that, slash him twice. Once he deflects you, be ready to counter one of two attacks.
He will Palm Strike you. After deflecting that, he will immediately go for a Thrusting Slash that you can Mikiri Counter. Alternatively, he will initiate a three-slash combo with slight delays between each slash. The delay is annoying but the strikes are extremely fast so do not wait for a motion. Just deflect during his wind-up.
He will sometimes do a drawn-out Windblast Attack that you can avoid by circling him. This gives you a chance to get a hit in during his cooldown. He also does the Windblast whenever you deflect his overhead Ashina Slash that is similar to Geralt’s rend in the Witcher 3.
The key to this phase is breaking his Posture by staying very aggressive and deflecting the attacks, I told you. His Posture recovers very quickly so never stop attacking. He also has a special chase attack if you use your Healing Gourd. Therefore, make sure you only use the Healing Gourd at the end of one of his combos after you evade it.
Phase 2
Now here is where you need to summon every ounce of the SoulsBorne player within yourself to succeed. Before that, did you know that you can sneak a few hits in?
As soon as you land the Phase 1 Deathblow, keep attacking! Do not run back since you will force Isshin on the defensive. He has the same patterns as Phase 1 in this brief window so use the same tactics I mentioned above to counter him.
Once he stomps the ground and shoves you away, Phase 2 begins. Isshin will now be wielding both his sword and a giant Glaive/Spear/Javelin whatever – a giant weeb stick, okay?!
This thing is one of the worst things to go up against in Sekiro Shadows Die Twice since the swings can hit you from every direction. Moreover, his attacks with it are elegant yet feral so it is hard to analyze his swings.
He also has a firearm at his disposal though blocking it costs very little Posture Meter. Both his weapons can be deflected but getting the timing down is harder. My personal strategy involves getting right up in his face. His Posture recovers much slower than the first phase so the trick is to keep interrupting his attacks.
If you are lucky, you will even chip away at his HP. The key to beating him is baiting out his deflect and then deflecting his incoming attack. Sometimes, you will even get lucky and receive a Thrusting Slash that you can Mikiri Counter. The only thing to watch out for is his surrounding Wind Slice Spin which you can run away from easily enough.
Phase 3
Honestly, phase 3 was anti-climactic for me. The old dude pulls lightning out of his arsenal that by now you should know is the worst thing to attack Okami with. Just deflect that bad boy back at him and start attacking.
His attacks are much slower than phase 2 and the lightning alone deals a load of Posture Damage. I could not analyze this phase much since the 5 times I died in this fight were all to Phase 1 and Phase 2. Phase 3 lasted for all of about 20-30 seconds.
I hope that this Sekiro Genichiro and Sword Saint Isshin Boss Guide helps you teach pops a lesson. It also rewards you with the coolest execution so there is that. Remember to just attack, deflect, and Mikiri Counter. Also, occasionally retreat and lastly git gud!
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