Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance walkthrough, Part Thirteen: Monsoon

Struggling with his inner demons, Raiden has finally given in to his love of killing and become Jack the Ripper once more. He has the opportunity to exercise his newfound battle prowess on Monsoon, a Desperado cyborg, and Monsoon is a more than capable opponent for our hero. (If he's still a hero.)

Raiden controls the same in this battle, though with one big difference (aside from the red light coursing from his body): he can always enter slow-moving Blade Mode. The gauge never drops. This is a great thing against Monsoon, as you need to go slow mo quite often to get through unscathed.

Monsoon is a ridiculously-fast opponent. He strikes from all angles with incredible speed, and can easily stun Raiden if you're not instantly prepared for a parry. His initial attacks include:

• Normal slashes, executed at high speeds
• A stunning attack where he'll stab Raiden repeatedly in the chest - wriggle your control like mad to get out of this
• A smoke bomb attack where he'll appear at random and strike from all angles - parry immediately when he appears to dodge these attacks or you're in for a ton of damage

Keep Monsoon in front of you as much as possible to parry or avoid his attacks, and slash normally to do damage. If Monsoon gets behind you he'll be difficult to catch.

Whittle Monsoon down enough and he'll switch to a secondary mode, wherein he uses the magnets in his body to fling his limbs around. He'll start by sending his arms at you, then his legs, then the rest of his torso. Parry each time you see a red flash to knock his limbs aside; the arms in particular are extremely fast, so you'll have to move quick. While Monsoon's in this mode, surrounded by purple light, you can barely do any damage to him, and he'll counter viciously if you try to attack.

The key here is to catch Monsoon with an EM Grenade. If you have one, wait until he's just a floating torso, then lob it at him. This will knock him back into his normal mode and open him up for attack again, as well as a brief Zandatsu strike where you can go at his head for a lot of damage. If you don't have an EM Grenade, wait for Monsoon to begin throwing helicopters and tanks at you. Use Blade Mode to slice these vehicles up and you'll receive EM Grenades, as well as restorative items. (If you're not lucky, Monsoon will go back to normal eventually. You'll just have to wait him out.)

The third phase against Monsoon is largely the same as the first two, though he moves around more and his detached body parts are more likely to attack three or four times before falling over. Monsoon will also create a wheel of debris to crush you; parry it once or twice and you'll get a chance to slice it up in Blade Mode.

Eventually Monsoon will pick up a giant monument nearby using his magnets, heralding the end of the fight. Follow the prompts and you'll get an opportunity to tear him apart for good. Raiden will go back to normal after the fight… kinda… and the chapter will come to a close. As a reward for taking out Monsoon you'll receive his tactical sai, Dystopia, which you can equip in favour of Mistral's pole-arm. This is an excellent long-range weapon for catching enemies unaware without having to get right up behind them. You'll also unlock a slew of new upgrades on the Customize menu screen, which you should invest in before you undertake the next chapter.