The Shinobi hunter is a tough foe to face, and Sekiro has his work cut out for him
In Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, you have the opportunity to return to the past to relive the main character’s previous battles. One of these happens at the Hirata Estate, which bandits attempted to loot while a great battle called most of the estate’s soldiers away. It was up to the main character, Sekiro, to protect the estate and the young lord. One of the stronger individuals leading the battle was a Shinobi Hunter Enshin of Misen. Enshin wields a giant spear, which makes fighting him complicated as Sekiro is limited to a sword, a handful of tools.
Shinobi Hunter Enshin of Misen
Mikiri Counter
Before you get to this battle, you want to make sure you unlock the Shinobi Martial Arts skill, Mikiri Counter. The Mikiri Counter allows you to counter an enemy’s thrust as it’s coming in. Sekiro does this by parrying the spear down with his foot and then attacking the now off-balance opponent. To unlock this skill, visit a Sculptor’s Idol and go to the skill menu. It should be on the bottom skill tree. It costs two skill points to purchase.
Landing the counter is tricky because you have to press the step dodge button as soon as the thrust is about to hit you. To practice this counter, you can return to the Dilapidated Temple and speak to Hanbei the Undying. After unlocking the Mikiri Counter, you and Hanbei can practice this technique.
Clear the Area
Right before fighting Enshin, there are a handful of guards surrounding him. The one closest to the bridge is the easiest to dispatch. However, the guard nearest Enshin, an archer, typically sees you as you approach. Take out the guard on the bridge and disengage until the archer loses sight of you, and is no longer aware of your presence. Return to the bridge, go around the large building next to it, crouch, and use the flowers to approach the archer and take them out.
Immediately after taking out the archer, there are guards on the small hill nearby, who are going to see you. Pull away from Enshin, and fight them off. Usually only one follows, allowing you to kill them and then return to the stealth kill the other, but they both could see you killing the archer.
Fighting Enshin
Once you’ve cleared the area, it’s only you and Enshin now. An excellent start to the fight is to stealth approach Enshin from behind and hit him with a fatal attack. He’ll have one bar of health for the rest of the battle, making this encounter considerably more manageable.
When you’re fighting Enshin, you want to parry most of his attacks until you see the red symbol flash, which is the game indicating he’s about to launch his unblockable attack. As it appears, this is the moment you want to hit with the Mikiri Counter. To do so, as the red symbol flashes, wait for the moment the strike is about the land, and then perform the step-dodge into him, not away, or to the side. You need to step into him to land the blow. Doing so allows you to get in a clean strike, walloping him. You’ll have to do this several times, parrying most of his attacks and dodging, waiting for the red symbol to appear again.
You’re not going to have too many chances to strike Enshin. He’s a difficult character to land sword strikes against, but as long as you keep a respectable distance and land the Mikiri Counter against him, you should be able to take him down and advance forward.
