Shinobi Art of Vengeance: Kijima Boss Guide

Kijima waits for Joe Musashi in Shinobi Art of Vengeance’s Neo City stage. Immortal and ruthlessly loyal to Lord Ruse, he shows off his immortality with a literal sword in his chest throughout the fight. This fight will become easier when you take advantage of the grapple hook at the top of the stage; he spends a lot of time floating in the air, just out of reach. So just grapple up and get a few strikes on him.

This is the kind of boss that could come back to haunt us later, but hopefully, that’s not the case. If you’re struggling with Shinobi Art of Vengeance’s Kijima, we’re here to help you overcome this challenging foe.

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Tips to defeat Kijima in Shinobi Art of Vengeance

Kijima’s attacks

• Power Dive: From the air, Kijima glows purple and dives down at an angle, with blood covered hands. He often follows it up with a ground-based Power Dive.
• Regeneration: Kijima teleports to the top of the screen and covers himself in a shield, slowly healing him.
• Ground Power Dive: Instead of going to the skies, Kijima does a pair of short range dash attacks after glowing purple.
• Sword Release: Kijima channels and releases the sword from his body. It spins around and chases you slowly.

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Kijima is a genuinely interesting boss fight in Shinobi Art of Vengeance. He doesn’t aggressively attack, except when using Power Dive or Ground Power Dive. Either way he’ll use one followed by the other in quick succession, so either jump and dash to avoid them, or use the grapple point.

A few times in the fight, Kijima will also float out of reach, and cover himself in a shield. The Regeneration, while not incredibly fast, will get out of hand if you don’t stop it. He’ll keep going until he’s at full health. Use the grapple hook to get up to him, and use a dive kick/heavy combo follow-up. Keep striking and dashing in the air until you knock him to the ground.

When he clenches up at the top of the screen, IMMEDIATELY go in on him! (Image via SEGA)

When he gets close to 50%, he’ll float into the sky, and free the sword from his chest. Now it will spin slowly across the screen, chasing you. While using this Sword Release attack, he doesn’t use any other moves.

He just floats away from you. Should he teleport, he’ll likely re-cast Sword Release, so it starts floating from his new position. Even if the sword hits you, it’ll keep rotating around you and Kijima, trying to get more hits on you.

You can get tons of damage in on Kijima if you can avoid the sword with dodges and dashes (Image via SEGA)

You can often dive kick him into a juggle after his Power Dives, because I don’t believe they can be interrupted. You can also get quite a bit of damage if you juggle him against the wall.

Eventually he’ll teleport away from you though, so it’s not infinite; at least not that we’ve found. If you get the boss down to around 1-5% health, you can execute and immediately defeat him. Your reward for this Shinobi boss fight is the incredibly useful Vampire amulet.

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Shinobi Art of Vengeance is the latest action platformer from SEGA, and will release on August 29, 2025, on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One. You can learn more about the game from our in-depth review.