After completing the main story, you will unlock Bakumatsu Premium Adventure (free roam after story) and Ultimate Challenge on the main menu. Ultimate Challenge is a series of challenges, across four categories, where you need to do a specific task presented before you. This page will focus on the Skill Challenges, where you usually need to defeat enemies in specific ways.

Skill Challenge 1¶

• Defeat all enemies using only Heat Actions
• Be careful, as you can only use each Heat Action once

The first Skill Challenge makes it so you can only do damage with Heat Actions, as no other attacks will actually cause damage. Thankfully, you will have infinite Heat for this challenge, so you don’t have to actually worry about generating your own Heat. Also, each Heat Action can only be deal damage once, meaning you will need to perform a plethora of them to defeat all of the enemies. Here are some Heat Actions that can actually deal damage to more than one enemy at a time, as well as other ones that are easy to do:

• Swordsman - Run towards a group of three enemies to see the Heat Action icon pop up
• Brawler - Knock down an enemy on their back, then approach their feet to do a giant swing
• All of the styles have a Heat Action whenever the enemy is on the ground
• Brawler - Grab an enemy for one, which can split into two more
• Swordsman - Evade towards an enemy to see a Heat Action, which can split into two more
• Wild Dancer - Evading near an enemy should trigger one
• Wild Dancer - There’s another Heat Action after the second button press of the Phoenix combo

Skill Challenge 2¶

• Defeat all enemies using special moves with R2/RT

Similar to the first challenge, you will have unlimited Heat gauge during this one, so you will be able to easily use all of the special moves assigned to the R2/RT button. Of all the special moves, the Wild Dancer’s is probably the most proficient in taking out many enemies at once. In fact, you should use this move on the first wave of enemies, then wait for your Heat gauge to fill back up and clean up any stragglers. After the first wave, an armored enemy will appear alone in the second wave, which means you should switch to the Brawler or Swordsman special attack.

For the Brawler, after the initial hit, you just spam the normal attack button to continue punching the enemy. When you use the Swordsman’s special attack, hold the initial button down, then press in the direction of the enemy, plus the normal attack button to perform a slash. After the initial slash, you can keep doing additional slashes (direction + attack), as long as you have Heat leftover. The third wave is a set of normal enemies again, then the fourth wave (final) will be two more armored enemies. There’s no time limit or anything, so you can take as long as possible here.

Skill Challenge 3¶

• Destroy all scarecrows

Ah, the first challenge of this set that can prove to be a little difficult. You’ll be going through a Scarecrow Chateau room, where you need to destroy all of the scarecrows that pop up. Thankfully, none will spawn behind you, so you can keep moving forward the entire time. With the exception of two scarecrows behind barriers that require Gunman, you are free to use whichever style you want. The Gunman style is probably the best here, though, especially if you utilize the one trick to get behind the scarecrows. You will have 3 minutes and 30 seconds to complete this challenge, by the way.

The reason you get behind them is because you actually inflict critical damage to them, which is important, since there will be plenty of black scarecrows that have a lot of health. Gold Scarecrows, as well as regular ones, should go down very quickly; red ones will also be destroyed easily. As mentioned above, though, the toughest part of this challenge will be all of the black scarecrows. The challenge starts out simple enough, with normal scarecrows, and a black one peppered in here and there. Eventually, though, the first set will all become black scarecrows, so utilize the tip above to make short work of them.

The final row of the first set will have some red ones, so be careful with the gun ones, as they can knock you down with their shots (you can try blocking with a katana if you won’t make it in time). The first diagonal set will all be red ones with guns, so be cautious. Right after this diagonal set is when you see the two golds behind barriers that require Gunman. From there on out, it will mostly be black ones, with a few reds and golds sprinkled in there, until the end, when you have a lot more reds appear. When you see the multiples of red scarecrows, you will be just about done.

Skill Challenge 4¶

• Achieve a 99-hit combo

Achieving a 99-hit combo isn’t going to be too easy, since it will break if you take too long between hitting enemies, or if the enemy hits you with an attack. Add in the 1 minute timer, and you need to think fast on your feet here. The best style for this is probably Wild Dancer, since its attacks are quick and the Phoenix combo is great for racking up hits. You will want to keep enemies close enough to you, so you can play off of one and attack another, without hopefully getting hit or having to break your combo by not hitting anything yourself.

Skill Challenge 5¶

• Fight hard to achieve the Godly (actually Deadly) rank

There’s a bit of a typo for the description of this challenge, as there is one more rank above Godly, which is what’s required here (it’s called Deadly). Despite the seemingly random nature of the battle rank, there is actually a nice set pattern you can do here to make this challenge a cakewalk. The battle ranks are as follows:

• Rough - Solid - Sharp - Keen - Bloody - Godly - Deadly

As soon as the battle begins, switch to Wild Dancer and try to evade the enemy’s attack at the last possible second. Do this three times and your rank should increase twice. From there, you want to start doing combos, starting with a 5-hit, then a 10-hit, and lastly, a 20-hit combo. Begin with the lowest count first, just to make sure that it doesn’t become a little screwy. Doing this should get you to Bloody.

From there, you simply need to use Heat Actions, but they all have to be different ones. It’s better to use one for each style, just to be on the safe side that you don’t repeat them. If done correctly, you should reach Deadly at this point. If not, then you could try switching to Brawler and doing a parry or two, or repeat any of the above actions again. The battle will be over as soon as you reach Deadly.

Skill Challenge 6¶

• Protect Akimoto from the Shinsengumi

You will be fighting a bunch of Shinsengumi enemies here, and have to protect Akimoto. Of course, Akimoto is fairly weak and dies in just a few hits, so you basically have to make sure he doesn’t get hit at all (once or twice is fine, but it’s better to be safe). Wild Dancer and Gunman might be the better options here, for styles, since one allows you to shoot enemies from a distance and the other has great movement. Of course, Akimoto doesn’t help and will offer to fight enemies, so it might be better to use Wild Dancer, so you can keep close to him. In fact, the Phoenix combo is great, since it hits all around you. If you generate enough Heat, you can easily use the Wild Dancer’s special attack to really wreak havoc. There might be a little bit of luck involved, since you never know when the enemies will go after Akimoto, and vice versa. You need to defeat all of the enemies to complete the challenge.

Skill Challenge 7¶

• Defeat 100 enemies using the cannon

You will have 1 minute and 30 seconds to defeat 100 enemies with the cannons in front of you. This is similar to the story bit, although the enemies don’t seem to come where you are located. However, the time limit you have will make you try to hurry up, since you only have 90 seconds. Four of the enemies are armored, while the rest seem to be normal foes. The normal ones should die in one hit with the cannon, though, so that 100-man counter will dwindle quite quickly. You have infinite ammo with the cannon, too, so you should just keep firing.

Of course, firing blindly isn’t going to work all too well, despite the splash damage from the cannon fire. You want to make sure that the aiming reticule is red before letting loose, since that makes sure you will hit something. Your main goal is probably to focus on the armored enemies, since the splash damage will likely hit the normal enemies.

Skill Challenge 8¶

• Defeat the red, yellow, and blue ninja in that order
• However, you must not harm any other enemy

There is definitely some luck with this challenge, as you can only damage three of the Ninja in the battle. You also need to defeat the enemies in the order listed above, so you will want to be a little careful here. There is no time limit, so you can take it slow and go as long as you want here. The biggest problem here is that you’re up against a bunch of Ninja, who like to move around quite a lot, and they can throw projectiles at you that stun you for a few seconds. To be on the safe side, it’s best to avoid using Wild Dancer and Gunman, as both of those styles tend to either switch their target very sporadically, especially if you’re not using the lock-on button.

Of course, that will be the key here, though, so you can use the lock-on button to keep the focus on your intended targets. Keep going after your targets and when they are isolated enough, that will be your opportunity to attack. Hopefully, they don’t move around while you’re attacking, and get in the way of the other enemies.

Skill Challenge 9¶

• Defeat all enemies using only pick-up weapons

You have 1 minute and 30 seconds to defeat eight enemies with only weapons you pick up off the ground. This can be quite difficult, especially since most of the items on the ground aren’t going to do much in the way of damage. Also, the majority of the items on the ground have a durability, meaning they will break after you connect hits (whether the enemy is blocking or not) with them. However, there is one item on the map that doesn’t break, and that is the Phoenix Cannon. This is a little hidden and tough to actually see, so let’s go over where it’s located.

As soon as the challenge starts, bust through the door and run past the enemies. Turn right and go to the dead end to see a Bluefin Tuna on the table. Grab it and strike the enemies with it, until it breaks. Return to where the tuna was located and look next to the door to see the Phoenix Cannon. This weapon cannot break and even if you get hit, you won’t drop it. It has three different attacks, with the normal attack button firing a shot straight ahead. Circle/B will have Ryoma aim the cannon into the air and fire three shots, which is the one you will be using quite a bit here. Triangle/Y will have Ryoma just do a melee attack with the cannon, which does more damage than the other two attacks.

So, the idea is to use the raining fire attack with the Phoenix Cannon, then just using the normal attack whenever an enemy strays and gets too close. As the numbers dwindle, you can switch over to the normal attack and just clean up with the melee strike with the cannon.

Skill Challenge 10¶

• Defeat all enemies

For the final challenge in this set, this is probably the easiest one, since there’s no restrictions and no timer at all. You have a bunch of swordsmen, who seem to die in one or two hits, and four large, armored men with clubs. There are two gatling guns near your starting position, but they aren’t really needed here. Also, at least one of the armored men will rush your starting position, so you won’t have too much time on the gatling gun to begin with here. There’s really nothing much to say about this challenge, due to how easy it is, but make sure you use your katana to deal with the armor first, then you can switch to whatever else you want to use.