Throughout the story of Onimusha: Way of the Sword, you'll face a good number of bosses that must be defeated in order to progress. In this section of our guide, we'll give you some tips for taking on Daidara, Slavering Glutton, whom you'll fight during The Stage is Set at Kiyomizu.
The first thing you need to know is that Daidara is less dangerous than he looks. To begin with, he has two unarmed attacks, at least from what we've seen. One is a fairly quick stomp that will probably catch you off guard the first few times he uses it. The second is a charging attack that you need to dodge, telegraphed by several quick stomps on the ground and a clear warning to get out of his way.
Aside from that, try to absorb every soul that appears throughout the fight. If Daidara absorbs them instead, he'll gradually become stronger as the battle goes on.
Then there's the enormous kanabo he wields. His swings can get stuck in the walls along the sides of the arena, so take advantage of this until he eventually destroys them. As ridiculous as it might seem, you can and should Parry his kanabo attacks to throw him off balance. The timing is fairly forgiving because most of his swings are quite slow. After you land the first Break Issen, his spinning attacks won't stop even if you successfully Parry them, so don't counterattack until the sequence is completely over. Keep going until you land a second Break Issen... and you'll have to fight him again.
The second fight is essentially the same, but with two important differences. First, at a certain point his kanabo transforms into a whip-like weapon. Its reach is much greater, although the basic attack patterns remain the same. He also gains a grab attack, which is fortunately quite slow. Performing a Reflex Dodge against it is one of the best ways to deplete his Stamina Gauge and set him up for another Break Issen.
