General Stuff

• Cutscene skips are turned off by default, go into settings and turn them on.
• Text in this game can be auto-skipped by holding R1+(X/O depending on game language). If you're picking the bottom option of dialog, holding 'down' before getting to the option makes the menuing faster.
• Encounters will always appear in the same location in each area of the city separated by loading zones. Memorize these locations and move to avoid them before even seeing if they are there.
• The end-of-fight slow motion can be skipped by pressing start to advance immediately to the fade-out. This cannot be done if you finished the fight with a heat action, so try not to do that.
• PS3 digital is the fastest version, but note that it's only in Japanese.
• Gut Punch (Square + Square + Triangle) is the most useful attack in the game, you will spam this in 90% of fights

Chapter 1

• Tutorial: use the stone lantern for your weapon, not the wooden spoons
• Kamurocho Thugs: slam the red coat guy into the pole (followup QTE for poles is X).
• Fight the random encounter in front of Serena to get Brass Knuckles. Reset if it isn't there or it doesn't drop them (it can also drop 5/7/10k yen). Equip the knuckles
• Tutorial 2 & City Roughs: Grouping
• Daigo Dojima: Buffer your gut punches to skip his Feel the Heat

Chapter 2

• Pick the second option ("I peacocked your mom") to fight the Sotenbori Thug
• See the conversation at the Grand, return to Kurokawa, return to the Grand
• Omi Alliance: Remove knuckles, build heat and throw people off the balcony. Do not re-equip the knuckles

Chapter 3

• 2nd option to Daigo to go to Omi HQ
• Go-Ryu Clan Members: Put the knuckles back on, gut punches
• Save Chairman Jin Goda: Fight enemies until the one with more HP spawns, grab him from behind and use the wall heat action. No one else after him needs to die.
• Pocket the baseball bat in the next room, put knuckles back on. Use knuckles heat actions on furniture blocking guys as you head downstairs
• In the locked room with four enemies, only the one guy on the left with more HP and yellow hair needs to die. Grab from behind, wall heat action, knuckles back on.
• intentionally fail the chandelier QTE (it's Circle, press something else) and leave
• Back-grab-wall-heat the two bigger enemies. Put knuckles back on for the third smaller enemy
• Ryuji Goda 1: Bat heat action. TWO swings, dodge his attack (probably), another bat heat action. "Feel the Heat" comes up but when you press triangle it should fail and you just kick him. Pick your bat back up, dodge (probably), bat heat again, two more swings should kill

Chapter 4

• Whenever you're going to Aoi from this starting location, taxi to coin lockers and walk from there. Go to Aoi & return to the car
• Hug the left walls with Kaoru to Aoi
• Go to Don Quixote. Run into yellow suit guy outside, pick first option for 100k yen. Buy panties and beer, 3x Staminan XX and 1x Tauriner+. grab locker key #21 (Skanda Water)
• Get Locker key #48 (Patriarch Bat, by the bathrooms in Club SEGA)
• Go inside the pharmacy and buy bandages
• Get locker key #22 (DVD, left of the cabaret grand taxi) and taxi to the coin lockers
• Open lockers 21 and 22 BUT NOT 48
• watch the DVD at Gandhara (third option, then bottom to leave). Wait for phone call at a distance then enter Aoi
• Talk to the guy outside the Mahjong parlor 15 times to fight him and get in. Make sure knuckles are back on, discard any remaining baseball bat from ch3
• Hand in the 100k to Esaki (bottom option then top). Taxi to Kurokawa, taxi to Cabaret Grand & talk to Stijl bartender, tell Esaki about the almonds (second option)
• Sotenbori Thug (Esaki): Move Esaki to the corner behind the table and kill with gut punches. When other enemies get close, kick the tables at them for a 1HKO.

Chapter 5

• Taxi to Tojo HQ (plot locations are always the bottom taxi option).
• Get the Skanda Water and Kien Dagger from the secret room
• Return to serena, taxi to purgatory, dodge the guy who wants to talk to you out front
• Take off knuckles, last option talking to majima and the colosseum guy
• Robison Caetano Di Sciuva: Gut punch (try again if he blocks) then uppercut (Sq+Sq+Sq+Tri) to iframe through his counter. Alternate gut punches and uppercuts.
• Gary Buster Holmes: Spamming gut punch iframes through his counter
• Goro Majima: Your heat bar should be full. Do the knuckles heat action, repeat when he's standing back up. Do not mash circle and you should have enough heat to do the whole fight this way
• Return to Serena

Chapter 6

• 2nd option to theater square info guy
• Team 16-Bit: Pocket the baseball bat and put the knuckles back on
• Taxi south to Muno Brothers
• 16-Bit's Muno Brothers: Bring small green muno to the pole, grab and use the pole heat action (followup QTE is Square). Repeat until he's dead then do the same for bigger muno
• LEVELS: as many as you can from the top track once you hit 27xp (should be now)
• Amano Building: X QTE to dodge the boxes. On the second MIB encounter get him down the hallway, away from the ledges so he doesn't fall off. Pocket the Patriarch Bat on the fire escape. Keep MIB away from boxes in the third encounter.

Chapter 7

• Stand still a moment to dodge the cop standing right in front of Doc Emoto's clinic
• Last option to Date. Go to bantam, then back to the clinic
• Mysterious Foreigners: Get them both between the sofa and the wall (by the two poles), gut punch simultaneously
• Return to Bantam, do the fight, return to serena
• From now on, hug the left wall in the alley behind Serena or you'll get sucked into the Grandma White substory (very punishing)

Chapter 8

• The intruders in the transformer room spawn in the farther location of the two
• Hiroshi Hayashi: Buffer gut punches for his first 2 phases. Once he drops the pipes, use two bat heat actions, then drink a Staminan XX, do two more, strong attack as he's standing up, feel the heat, two normal swings after that.
• Find Daigo (Shangri-La): Drink Staminan XX to get heat. Ignore all enemies that aren't furniture guys, heat action through them
• Go-Ryu Clan Members (Top of Shangri-La): Try to group up the gun enemies or deal with them first. This fight could kill you

Chapter 9

• 2nd option to Kashiwagi, go to Tojo HQ
• Go-Ryu Clan Members: Let the sword enemy get you into crit (flashing red) HP
• Koji Shindo: Spam gut punches until he's in the garden. If you're set up for Shindo Skip, get his HP a bit above 1 bar remaining then spin him to the ground (Circle button with knuckles equipped) and do the special crit HP heat action. Mash until he's dead.
• clip of setting up Shindo correctly

Chapter 10

• Plot event is at Theater Square. Top option to Takeshi in the bar
• Walk to millennium tower and back, return to Serena
• Sotenbori filler: Taxi to Aoi, walk to Stijl, walk to river
• City Roughs: Gut punch the taser guys to make them drop their weapons. If you're going to get tased, immediately spin to save yourself. DO NOT let your knuckles drop below 2 or 3 spins, it is unsafe.
• Go back to river, watch tattoo cutscenes, walk to Satoshi's room
• Satoshi: Focus Satoshi, his friends don't matter

Chapter 11

• Stay left in Shinseicho to avoid shoplifting granny
• Do not play or pay the shogi guy (2nd option twice), pay the cheater 10k yen (2nd option), then play shogi (1st option).
• Put yourself in check by moving the piece in this picture (link) forward three times. Then flip the board and capture what used to be your king with the piece he put you in check with.
• Pray for no RNG encounter (clip of how to dodge it)
• 1000 yen in the statue, follow & fight Arigato. Get locker key #8 (Ogre Knuckles) in the far north of Shinseicho before going up the tower.
• Interact with the binoculars and get locker key #49 (Calming Towel) right next to it
• The phone password is 503. Order the guts 3 times at the restaurant then bottom option to the guy outside Keima
• Jingweon Mafia Members: Heat action the smaller enemies and keep the boss locked down with gut punches

Chapter 12

• Hug the left wall to avoid the fixed encounters. Talk to Kurokawa, taxi to lockers. Open locker #8 and equip Ogre Knuckles (STILL DON'T OPEN 48 and 49)
• Golf center fight, then to the river
• Kurokawa: throw him and the other high HP enemy into the river
• Now open Locker #48 and 49 (you should have 2 patriarch bats, brass knuckles, and ogre knuckles)
• Taxi to Shinseicho, Esaki is at the acupuncturist, follow him north to fight him, then taxi to the castle
• Osakan Castle: Focus Kuneida, ignore all other fights. At the machine gun, throw a patriarch bat at a wall so you can have a free hand and use the gun. Don't leave that bat behind.
• Kuneida 2: Keep him by the exit door to avoid extra QTEs
• Tigers: Swap to Brass Knuckles (the weaker knuckles). Each tiger will enter Feel The Heat when you've knocked them down 3 times with the spin attack. Two Feel The Heats to each tiger kills. Once the first tiger is dead, kill the second quick to avoid the QTE sequence.
• Note that the tigers, without double spins or misses, take 12 spins to kill total. This is why you must conserve spins earlier in the run. DO NOT LET YOUR KNUCKLES RUN OUT, EVER. Getting at least one double spin is fairly common however

Chapter 13

• Filler: Leave Aoi, walk north for cutscene, return to Aoi, Go to the idol office, return to Aoi
• Bottom option to Haruka to leave Sotenbori (This skips the intended Stijl trip)
• Truck Fight: Finish the Man In Black with a heat action to skip the long slow-mo fall of the truck
• Kurahashi: Drink Skanda Water and equip the calming towel. Walk Kurahashi in circles around the room to avoid his minions

Chapter 14

• Discard the calming towel before you forget about it
• Go to Doc Emoto's clinic, take the NW taxi to Tojo HQ, taxi+go to purgatory, walk to Bantam, then the clinic, then Stardust
• Stardust Fight: The larger enemies here will go "aggro" and get a bunch of iframes if you bring their HP low enough. If one is going to be at low HP, finish him off.

Chapter 15

• Taxi to Purgatory. Walk to the substory with the guy jumping off the building on the northernmost street to the west. Decline to help, taxi to Serena, taxi to police HQ

Chapter 16

• 2nd option to Date then leave to start the finale
• Fight 1: Drink Skanda Water.
• Fight 2: Kill the small guy, then the red baton guy, then the third guy
• LEVELS: Buy top track through level 9 at the start of the third fight (this costs 65xp total)
• Fight 3: Try to group them in the corner
• Fight 4 & Man In Black: Let the gun enemies shoot you until your HP is low. The goal is to exit this fight in flashing red health. You can not die as long as you keep the heat bar filled.
• Go behind the big yellow boxes and get the Payback Ring (double damage when in crit hp, which you should have set up). Equip it and equip the 11-hit patriarch bat
• Ryuji Goda 2: Use a patriarch bat, just swing it (no heat actions) and don't do Feel the Heat
• Daejin Kim: Start with a bat heat action, combo him as he's standing up. Ignore the minions, use the patriarch bats. Swing at him once to let him dodge it, then get behind him and punish his long attack. Fail the first two QTEs then succeed the third (they're all O>X), mash X hopefully kills. Do not do feel the heat, leave with some bat left.
• Ryuji Goda 3: Throw the bat, light punch his counter to force him into the long counter, do the infinite combo. Final QTE is Triangle, timer stops on that.
• clip of a clean Ryuji 3 fight