Thirteen, fourteen or eighteen — all three are right
If one guide says thirteen bosses and another says eighteen, neither is wrong; they are counting different things. The trophy list carries THIRTEEN trophies for individual named opponents, from Sasaki Ganryu to Minamoto no Yoshitsune. Add Serves You Right, for the Byakue at Kiyomizu-dera Temple, and you have FOURTEEN boss trophies. The full list has 18 main boss fights, because second and enhanced forms count separately: Byakue and Byakue (Enhanced), Dohatsu-ten and Dohatsu-ten (Enhanced), Nue (Blue) and Nue (Red), Sasaki Ganryu and Sasaki Ganryu (Altered), Benkei and Benkei (Fully Armed). Strip the variants out and you are left with THIRTEEN distinct opponents — and those thirteen are precisely Genma Notes 11 to 23 on our Genma Notes tracker, which is the cleanest confirmation available that the number is thirteen.
Every fight PowerPyx rates, in its order
| Fight | PowerPyx's rating | Trophy | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Byakue · and Enhanced | 2.5/10 · 3/10 | Serves You Right | White, talisman-furred, a massive axe. Below half health the axe is wreathed in Malice and it starts laying Malice pools. |
| Dohatsu-ten · and Enhanced | 3.5/10 · 3.5/10 | None | A devil with a massive katana. Its white-glowing attacks can only be parried or deflected. The enhanced version can use its late attacks from the start. |
| Nue (Blue) · Nue (Red) | 3/10 | None | Chimeras with serpent tails and electrical attacks. Unlock the camera, and break the tail guard with triangle and circle. |
| Sasaki Ganryu | 3.5/10 | Onimusha Showdown | "The game's true first boss." Quick piercing strikes against slower delayed ones; the blue grab is countered with circle. |
| Daidara | 3/10 | Get Stuffed | Armour-plated troll, giant mace, two health bars. It siphons blue souls you leave on the ground and grows stronger on them. |
| Rasho-gan | 4/10 | Twisted Fates | Multi-armed, throws Malice orbs and trees. Use Oni Vision to highlight its tether cord and shoot it to weaken it. |
| Greater Nue | 5.5/10 | Dokyo's Fixation | A massive chimera. It raises its tail to shield its face; break that guard with triangle and circle. Lightning arrives in phase two. |
| Benkei | 3/10 | Benkei: Out, but Not Down | Armoured polearm fighter. Stamina has to be depleted before he takes damage, and red souls strip his armour piece by piece. |
| Benkei (Fully Armed) | 5/10 | Baited by Benkei | The Rendaino rematch. A shoulder-mounted cannon charge needs an immediate bow shot — it is an instant kill on Carnage otherwise. |
| Ifuu | 4/10 | Howling Wind | Giant Oni with a double-edged axe and an inflatable bag on his back. When he pulls you in, shoot the balloon with the bow. |
| Burai | 5/10 | Crashing Lightning | Lightning-elemental mace. His eye is exposed while he lays lightning orbs; a raised right leg is the tell for a severe kick. |
| Ifuu and Burai | 6/10 | The Perfect Storm | Both at once. Keep their health levels similar and the camera unlocked; their joint ram in phase two is an instant kill on Carnage. |
| Shuten Doji | 5.5/10 | Wide Awake | Fire-elemental, drunken movement, and his health regenerates throughout — so stay aggressive. Phase two adds his own severed head as a sidekick. |
| Sasaki Ganryu (Altered) | 7/10 | We Done Here? | "The second-toughest fight in the game." Two separate health bars and an Oni companion, Gioh, fighting alongside him. |
| Dokyo | 2.5/10 | End This Madness | A genuinely original, gimmick-driven fight — and, despite the spectacle, the lowest-rated boss on the list. |
| Minamoto no Yoshitsune | 8.5/10 | Truly, Thank You | "By a wide margin the hardest and longest fight." Three full phases. |
The three that will actually stop you
Sasaki Ganryu (Altered) — 7/10
It is rated the second-toughest fight in the game. Two health bars, and he does not fight alone: an Oni companion named Gioh fights beside him with katanas. In phase two Gioh's tentacles turn purple and gain slam and lash attacks, while Ganryu's Malice-wreathed katana produces a white-glowing strike — which, by the colour rule, must be parried or deflected rather than dodged. It also wreathes the ground in Malice, sending out sword-slash waves that can be deflected or dodged.
Ifuu and Burai together — 6/10
Two bosses you have already beaten separately, now at once. The advice is structural rather than mechanical: keep the camera unlocked so you can see both, keep their health levels similar, and note that breaking stamina damages both when they are standing close. Once one brother enters phase two, focus the one still in phase one. Their shared phase-two finish — both rising on a cloud and conjuring a storm before a wide ramming attack — is an instant kill on Carnage if it connects.
Minamoto no Yoshitsune — 8.5/10
Three phases, and the third changes the rules: he cannot be damaged by any attack unless you are in your own Oni Awakening state. The two routes into that state are chaining Issen counters for blue and purple souls, or parrying to fill the Blazing Gauge and then attacking in Blazing State to extract them. Phase two is where the hoarded consumables go. Watch for the periodic pull — he drags you in while absorbing the arena's souls, then unleashes a sweep across the whole arena that is essentially game over if it connects. What happens after the fight is not described on this site.
Four rules that cover all eighteen fights
- White-glowing attacks can only be parried or deflected. Dodging does not work on them, and that holds for the Dohatsu-ten, Benkei, Ganryu (Altered) and Yoshitsune.
- Blue attacks are grabs, and the counter is circle. On a couple of them — Benkei (Fully Armed) among them — you add a left-stick direction to the circle press.
- Malice-wreathed means the enhanced state, usually from about half health, and it means the attack list has just grown.
- Break a guard with triangle and circle together. It works on the Dohatsu-ten's defence, the Nue's tail guard and the Greater Nue's raised tail, and is unreliable against Yoshitsune's armour in phase two.
- The bow is not optional equipment. Bow shots are needed against Rasho-gan's tether, Ifuu's balloon, Shuten Doji's fire breath and inflated head, Benkei's shoulder cannon, and several of Dokyo's tricks — which is one reason the Oni Bow sits on the main path and cannot be missed.
Boss Rematch, and the gold that lives there
Every boss can be fought again. Go to Emma's Hall and ring the bell to enter the Practice Grounds, where Takamura runs Boss Rematch. One opponent beaten there is the Second Helping bronze; every opponent beaten on every difficulty is Glutton for Punishment, one of only two golds. One rule makes it harder than the campaign fights it copies: in Boss Rematch you cannot use items or consumables from the item wheel — so the Amulet of Introspection and the talismans that carry a Carnage run are unavailable exactly where they would help most.
What the reviews say about boss design
- Push Square, 9/10, calls them "outstanding examples of memorable combat encounters", says there are "loads of them", and that "many of these boss battles are up there with the best in modern gaming".
- VGC, 3/5, agrees they are the best part and objects to the frequency: it says the big fights "are some of the best around" but that "there are far too many boss battles that are repeated at different segments of the game".
- Our own trackers show the pattern VGC is describing: Sasaki Ganryu, Benkei, and Ifuu and Burai each carry two separate trophies for two separate fights, which is six of the fourteen boss trophies spent on three opponents.
- The difficulty ratings do not follow the story order. The 8.5/10 final boss is expected; the 7/10 for Ganryu (Altered) at Arashiyama is the surprise, and Dokyo — the most elaborate fight on the list — is rated the easiest at 2.5/10.
Cross-checked
Cross-checked on 22 September 2026 against the guides of PowerPyx and Vandal and the reviews of Push Square and VGC; the boss guide behind the mechanics and ratings is written for Carnage. Not from a playthrough: nobody here has played it, and what the sources do not describe is not on this page.