What you'll be fighting between the bosses. Every number here is read straight out of the game's code, so it matches what actually happens on screen.
There are four kinds of regular enemy in Samurai Vengeance, plus a stronger elite version that turns up now and then. Bosses have their own page, the Boss Guide. This one covers everything else.
The first three stages only have grunts, so you can learn the controls on something that can't shoot back. After that the mix shifts as you climb, and by stage 30 the game is mostly archers and shield-bearers with grunts filling the gaps.
The basic swordsman. A grunt walks back and forth along its platform and hurts you if you're standing next to it when it walks into you. That's all it does. It has no ranged attack and no tricks.
A grunt hit costs you 12 health on Normal (4 on Easy, 20 on Hard), knocks you back, and then the grunt has to wait about a second and a half before it can hurt you again.
Grunts are the easiest thing in the game to parry, so use them to practise. Hold parry as one walks into you and it bounces off, turns around, and leaves you with a Punish. Your next swing becomes the heavy third hit of the combo, which does double damage. It's a good habit to build early because the same timing works on the boss.
Archers patrol like grunts and can body-check you the same way, but they also shoot. Once you're within about 550 pixels, which is most of a phone screen, an archer fires an arrow aimed at where you're standing, then reloads for somewhere between one and a half and two and a half seconds before the next one.
An arrow does a little over half of what a grunt's body hit does, about 7 on Normal. On their own that isn't much. The danger is three archers on three different platforms all firing while you're busy with something else.
You have three ways to deal with an arrow:
From stage 851 onward, archers start the stage readier to shoot. Their first arrow comes sooner the closer you get to stage 1000.
Shield-bearers start appearing at stage 10. They hit as hard as grunts and have the same health, but they carry a shield that blocks every sword hit from the front. Swing at one face on and you'll see BLOCKED and your blade bounce off. They also walk toward you rather than patrolling, so you can't just wait for one to turn away.
The trick is that a shield-bearer is slow to turn. It takes a little over half a second to swing round to face you, and that's your window. There are three ways to use it:
The Ki special ignores the shield completely, so on a stage with several of them it's worth saving.
The tengu is the only enemy that flies, and the only one that attacks from above. From stage 6 there's roughly a one in seven chance that any enemy is a tengu.
A tengu hovers high up and drifts sideways to stay over you, bobbing slightly. Every couple of seconds, if it's close to directly above you and you're below it, it dives straight at you. A dive lasts about half a second and then the tengu climbs back to its hovering height.
The best counter is to parry the dive. It adds 4 to your combo, gives you a Punish, and the tengu has to stop and wait a little over two seconds before it can dive again, which is plenty of time to hit it twice. If your parry isn't ready, dash sideways as it commits. Once it's diving it can't change direction.
Tengu are also the only enemy that can't catch you unaware at the start of a stage. The game keeps them away from where you spawn, so the first dive always comes after you've had a moment to look around.
On every fifth stage that isn't a boss stage (5, 15, 25 and so on) there's a 30% chance that the first enemy placed in the level is an elite. You'll know it by the red glow.
An elite is a normal enemy of its type with 2.2 times the health and 30% more speed. It hits no harder. An elite archer is still an archer, so the usual answers still work. It just takes longer to put down, which gives the rest of the stage more time to shoot at you.
Regular enemy health goes up by a fixed amount every stage. On Normal it's 20 plus 5 for every stage number. Tengu have about 60% of the figure in this table, and elites have 2.2 times it.
| Stage | Easy | Normal | Hard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stage 1 | 12 | 25 | 43 |
| Stage 10 | 30 | 70 | 115 |
| Stage 25 | 60 | 145 | 235 |
| Stage 50 | 110 | 270 | 435 |
| Stage 100 | 210 | 520 | 835 |
| Stage 250 | 510 | 1,270 | 2,035 |
| Stage 500 | 1,010 | 2,520 | 4,035 |
| Stage 1000 | 2,010 | 5,020 | 8,035 |
Your basic swing does 52 at Damage level 1 before any combo bonus, so on Normal a stage 1 grunt goes down in one hit and a stage 50 grunt takes six. That's why the combo multiplier matters more the further you get. Each hit you land adds 6% damage, up to almost triple at a combo of 30, and parries add to the combo too.
Stage 1 has three enemies. One more is added every three stages until the count tops out at twelve, which happens at stage 27. After that every regular stage has twelve.
| Stages | What spawns |
|---|---|
| 1 to 3 | Grunts only. |
| 4 to 9 | Mostly grunts, about 15% archers. Tengu from stage 6. |
| 10 to 19 | About 30% archers and 15% shield-bearers, the rest grunts. |
| 20 to 29 | About 35% archers and 20% shield-bearers. |
| 30 and up | About 40% archers and 20% shield-bearers. |
The tengu chance (about one in seven from stage 6) is taken off the top before this mix is applied, so the real share of each ground type is a little lower than the table shows.
From stage 8, roughly every seventh stage bends one rule. Three of them change who you're fighting.
| Modifier | What it does to enemies |
|---|---|
| Swarm | About 80% more enemies (up to 18), each with a bit over half the usual health. |
| Storm of Arrows | Every enemy is an archer. |
| Sky Assault | About seven in ten enemies are tengu, the rest archers. |
| Glass Blade | Everything hits you twice as hard, but coins are doubled. |
Swarm stages are the best place to build a big combo, because there's always something in reach. On Sky Assault, keep your parry ready for the dives.
You can't be body-checked from the air. Enemies only hurt you on contact when you're both standing on the same level. Jumping through or over an enemy is free, and passing through a platform with an enemy on it doesn't hurt either.
Watch the parry button. The shield button lights up amber when something you can parry is closing in. Parry while it's lit and it connects even if the hit hasn't quite reached you.
The Ki special hits everything on screen for 580 at Damage level 1. Up to about stage 100 on Normal that's enough to kill any regular enemy that isn't an elite in one go, so on a crowded stage it clears the screen.
Controls are on the How to Play page, and bosses are covered in the Boss Guide.
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