Regarding the final boss...

[spoiler] You need to use both analog sticks. First one is fine where you are, but the second one requires you to re-position yourself with the left stick. This is a little more lenient than Sundowner's fight. You only need to hit 3 of the 4 red squares to cut through. If all else fails, I hear you can simply avoid it by running forward, so the debris flies over you, but then you don't get all that delicious nanopaste.

He does this 3 times during the fight. Each time he throws out more debris for you to cut, but nothing really changes. You're on a time limit since you drain your fuel cells, but everytime you successful cut, you reset your time/fuel for the next piece. It's not that bad. Just remember, use both analog sticks. Good luck! [/spoiler]

You can drop the difficulty, but you'll start at the mission 00 and go from there. You'd be surprised at how fast you can blaze through these levels when you skip all the cutscenes. You benefit by gaining additional BP and you'll fill up on nano paste so you can jump back into stage 06 and continue where you left off. It's a good idea to spend your points on your health and fuel cell meter.

I recommend that you stick with it. Give the game a rest and come back later.

[spoiler] Sam's fight is tough, but not impossible. I was expecting some crazy insanity like Platinum is know for with their rival fights, but this was one of the most straight-forward and honest battles of the game. No tricks and gimmicks like the other Desperado bosses, just a challenging duel, and I loved that. [/spoiler]

I think I am at the final boss fight (on the highway) and I have no repair units left. Am I f*cked?

Also, i just bought the Lightning Strike Skill but I can find it in the move list. How do I pull it off? 

Oh and Raiden's cutscene with the stealth drones is the coolest cutscene I've ever seen. :lol:

S0lidSnake

Highway? Are you on Mission 6? There's nanopaste in crates scattered throughout the level.

[spoiler] You're talking about the fight with Sam, right? He's not the final boss, but make sure you do have nanopaste for the real final boss fight [/spoiler]

How the HELL do you parry successfully?? Or even BLOCK successfully??

I'm having an overly difficult time with the bosses in this game, I can't seem to block, much less parry. I keep hearing that to block you have to "tap" the L stick. Does that mean that for EVERY throw an enemy attempts I have to tap L towards their direction every time? I can't just HOLD L in that direction? And I'm guessing to parry I not only have to tap L towards them but also hit square at the same time, right? Given that bosses throw a ton of moves at you at a billion miles per hour, it seems near impossible to pull this off.

metalgrinch

You have to move the left stick in the direction of the attack AND press square at the same time. If an enemy is attacking on Raiden's right, you press the stick to the right and square at the same time. If they are attacking from the front, you push the stick up and square... and so forth. You are actively pushing against the enemy's attacks. Better timing will allow Raiden to automatically counterattack after blocking, basically right before the enemy's attack hits you. That is your actual parry, otherwise Raiden will simply block the attack.

You cannot simply hold the stick in place, you have to actively block/parry each and every attack that comes your way. You don't have to be perfectly accurate to block, but parrying itself requires good timing. Remember you can block just about every attack in the game, unless the enemy glows yellow right before striking. For those, it's good to rely on your dodge move (square + X) to avoid attacks. Good invincibility frames.

Hope that helps some, try the early VR missions if you need to practice. It is a little awkward at first, but I feel like they really made the mechanics work effectively well. Something as standard as blocking feels more dynamic to use, and it's pretty satisfying once you get the hang of it.

I really enjoyed the VR missions but then I got to 18. There is a line between skill based and just plain bull crap, they crossed the line big time.dvader654

I'm interested in what they have planned for the VR mission dlc. I want some more wacky stuff, like MGS VR Mission.

These VR missions just aren't that fun when you play as an under powered Raiden. It would have been nice to go in with all your available weapons and health, but yeah... that would defeat the purpose of the challenge. I don't know how the hell I'll finish 18 or 19, much less get gold on them. Most enemies do one-hit KO attacks.

Very hard is appropriately named. It has a nice challenge, mixes up more enemy types and increases the AI aggression. Oh, and they do a crap ton of damage too. It's pretty enjoyable, a nice step up from hard, but nothing frustrating. I don't think I'll be able to say the same for Revengeance when that comes along.

Sounds like you'd be better off just buying the game itself in that case. Letting in more people to play the multiplayer sounds good though. I wonder how the population's holding up. It was pretty fun at the time, maybe I'll come back to it.

How do you beat the Monsoon guy? He goes in this invincible state and nothing I do does any damage. It's impossible to block his attacks too in that mode too. Help!

S0lidSnake

EMP grenade or perfect parry his attacks. If all else fails, he'll wear himself out after some some time. You can still block all his attacks, you just need to be fast. The parry time frame is pretty generous.

This guy was fun to fight against. One of my favorites.

OMG! That was the best final boss I've played in ages! Hilarious and bad ass, it has Platinum's signature all over! I love this game. I hope Kojima gets them to work on MGR 2.

I just realized this game has Dodge Offset O_O. This game is just something else.

It's too bad that Platinum had to work under a shorter development cycle. Some of the later stages are incredibly short and feel somewhat rushed, what I feel to be the results their time constraint. It hasn't really bogged down the experience though. This game has some of the most entertaining bosses I've played in a long time. Monsoon is my favorite so far.