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Shogun Showdown’s chain master character fits a very specific appeal among its cast members. The meteor hammer is both a fun and effective weapon, as your little guy swings his way through the shogun’s army with a spiked yoyo.
As the final cast member in the game, it can take a bit of effort to unlock the chain master. You’ll need a good handle of the game’s existing mechanics before you have a chance to play as this character, whose skills also rely on fitting together the different approaches taught by the other cast members. Here’s how to unlock them and master their skills.
Unlocking Chain Master
The chain master is unlocked bydefeating day three on any character. At this level you’ve got two additional difficulty modifiers:
Elite enemies have altered palettes, additional HP, and special effects. Each has asymbol showing what their elite effect is, such as acting faster, attacking twice, or ignoring forced movement. The reactive shield is the biggest threat as it can defy the normal math on lethal blows.
The difference in consumable drop rates will be felt if you’ve been reliant on them before now.
Days are only unlocked per character, so you’ll typically want tofocus on a single character and clear as many days as possiblewith them.
Difficulty
Wanderer
The wanderer’s basic kit is effective and consistent, and you don’t need to worry about having to unlock other characters.
Ronin
The Ronin has a steeper learning curve and the small damage inflicted by their shoves canaccidentally set off reactive shieldson elite enemies.
Shadow
The Shadow’s unique movement style means they havefewer skills that translate to learning other characters.
Jujitsuka
The Jujitsuka is only unlocked after day two, meaning you’d need to replay those days with her again before trying day three. Hersimilar playstyle to the chainmasterdoes make her a good learning choice.
The wanderer is the optimal choicefor clearing day three as the others all have unlock conditions you’ll achieve along the way.
Chain Master Playstyle
The chain master plays rather differently from the wanderer, so you’ll want to take a few moments tolook over their kit before jumping into a run.
The chain master’s unique ability is tospin enemies from one side of them to the other. This does not change the direction they’re facing, meaning you’ll be able to reliably spin enemies on one side of you into attacking their friends on the other side. It can be used when enemies are on both sides, swapping their positions. Itcannot be used while standing on an edgeor next to a heavy enemy.
The chain master has two starting tilesets that can both make use of the swap toss. You can unlock the second tileset by collecting three achievement stamps while playing as them. The chain master’s kit makes them good at collecting the combo and move count stamps, along with the base stamp earned for defeating the shogun.
A
Meteor Hammer, Charge
The meteor hammer deals damage at range and in melee with the right positioning.Use swap toss to set up the hammerand charge as an escape tool or finisher.
The meteor hammer has a very high cooldown. You’ll be left vulnerable between your attacks.
B
Twin Tessen, Hookblade
The twin tessen is a strong positioning tool, while theHookblade is able to pull off large combo killsonce upgraded.
Your starting damage is limited. You’ll often rely on the swap toss to make early enemies kill each other.
The third unlockable tileset gives you two random tiles. This is difficult to plan around but will sometimes give you effective tools. Keep aneye open for utility weapons like the Bo, which can both damage enemies and stop them from attacking you.
Key Tiles And Upgrades For The Chain Master
The chain master is looking for a few specific tools to refine their starting kit and this is liable to determine the route you pick.
Combo-focused upgrades work great on the chain master.The meteor hammer can hit and kill two enemies at once, easily activating any passive skills that depend on combos. If you get a double-strike upgrade on it, it can activate three-hit combos needed by the stronger combo skills.
When choosing routes,prioritise warring and combo stores. Dancer upgrades are the least useful, as most of them provide minimal bonuses to your swap toss.
Tile Upgrades you’ll want to dedicate towards upgrading your main attack, either the meteor hammer or the hookblade, andgiving it as much damage as possible.
Thecombo recharge skill lets youuse this attack frequently even with a long cooldown. Both attacks can reliably activate it.
Perfect Strike is an alternate upgrade path for the meteor hammer. As it can hit multiple enemies it has ahigh chance of resetting its cooldownwith an exact kill, but this requires you to limit how many damage upgrades you give it.
Thefree-play upgrade works well on the charge or twin tessen tiles, giving you an emergency tool for escaping or knocking enemies out of attack range. Freeze upgrades are another strong option for preventing damage but won’t work against later bosses.
When you’re given additional tiles you want to look primarily at tools to enable further combos, and secondly for mobility tools that can get you out of danger:
