Nue — Way of the Sword Boss Guide (Fights 5 and 10)

This is the boss guide for the Nue family in Onimusha: Way of the Sword — fight 5, the blue-and-red Nue duo, and fight 10, Greater Nue, together on one page.

The fights at a glance

Fight 5 — the Nue duo (3/10)

Two chimeras with serpent tails, wielding electrical attacks. This fight is more a test of patience than skill, and the key to victory is perfect-dodging the bulk of their attacks:

• Do not lock on. Leaving the camera free makes it far easier to read when they are about to strike.
• Stay aggressive toward whichever Nue is nearest — katana slashes while staying ready to dodge their claw swipes, lunges, or head and tail smashes.
• Always keep half an eye on the other Nue. The one you are not hitting is loading its next move.
• The tail shield. When a Nue raises its tail to shield its face, break its guard with the dedicated guard-break input.
• The tail joins at half health. Once either Nue’s health drops to roughly half, its tail fights in earnest — attack patterns barely change, but the tail periodically hisses and fires electrified orbs, which you can deflect straight back at them.
• Finish the survivor the same way. Once one Nue falls, mop up the other with the same dodge-and-deflect approach.

Fight 10 — Greater Nue (5.5/10)

A massive chimera whose basic move set is kin to the smaller Nues — but this fight is where white-glowing attacks (deflect or parry only, no way around it) enter the family’s playbook:

• The opening tail swipe. The fight nearly always opens with a huge tail-swipe — a white-glowing attack. Deflect or parry it, and he follows up every single time with standing claw strikes, themselves deflectable.
• The standard set — mauling swipes, a shoulder charge, and a leaping body slam that is easily dodged or shut down with Issen. He will also charge outright with a sprint attack — simple to dodge — and follow it with a claw scratch once he closes in.
• The tail-sever trap. When the soul choice comes, one option severs his tail and hurls it back at him. PowerPyx advises against it: you can still take damage during the animation, and the tail regrows before long anyway. Take the souls instead — the trophy guide’s soul advice applies here too.
• Phase two: lightning. The same patterns carry over, now with several moves imbued with lightning. The tail swipe returns considerably larger and more telegraphed — still deflect-or-parry only — but afterward lightning orbs wreathe the tail entirely, and those need to be avoided as well.
• The lightning rain. At roughly the halfway point of phase two he rains bolts from the sky: these cannot be dodged or deflected, only sidestepped by staying on the move.
• The worm grab. In either phase he can grab you with the worm lodged in his mouth — a blue attack; counter on the prompt.
• The tail shield returns — raise guard, break it with the guard-break input.

Where this sits on the road

The duo is fight 5, Greater Nue fight 10 — Dohatsu-ten sits between them at 3-4, and Benkei follows at 11-12. The full order lives on the boss list; on the Platinum push all three fights return in Boss Rematch — part of the Glutton for Punishment sweep on the trophy roadmap.