Kena: Bridge Of Spirits bosses: all 16 boss fights

Want to learn about all the boss fights in Kena: Bridge Of Spirits? There is a grand total of 16 boss fights (that is, fights with big boss health bars at the top) in Kena: Bridge Of Spirits – and like everything else in Ember Lab’s marvellous action-adventure game, each one offers some true spectacle. If you’re looking for a list of all the boss fights and some advice on how to beat each one, you’ve come to the right place.

Keep scrolling to check out all 16 bosses in Kena: Bridge Of Spirits, presented in the order you’ll face them.

Obviously, major spoilers follow. You’ve been warned.

Kena: Bridge Of Spirits boss fights: all 16 bosses in order

Including both minibosses and true story bosses, there are 16 boss fights in Kena: Bridge Of Spirits (17 if you count the Kappa, which you actually fight two of in two different caves). Each one comes equipped with a variety of different attack patterns that you’ll likely need to study before you can effectively defeat them – as long as you’re playing on the higher difficulty levels in Kena: Bridge Of Spirits, anyway.

Let’s take a look at all of the boss fights in order from the start to the end of the game, when you’ll meet them, and how to defeat them.

Sprout

The Sprout is the first boss you’ll encounter in Kena: Bridge Of Spirits. You’ll find him at the end of the tutorial section, and you’ll likely also find that he doesn’t put up a terribly strong challenge. His attacks are all very slow one-or-two-hit combos that are easily dodged or parried, and he is very weak to you using your Rot Action to stun and distract him. This boss fight is over before you know it.

Kappa

On your way up to Rusu Mountain you’ll enter the dark cave where the Kappa dwells. This corruption-flinging boss likes to stay at a distance, and since you don’t have access to your Spirit Bow yet you’ll need to build up your Courage by hitting the smaller enemies, then use your Rot Action to stun the Kappa in order to get close and deliver damage to him. Another fairly straightforward and easy boss fight, but don’t get complacent – the difficulty starts to increase after this.

Wood Knight

The Wood Knight is the first true boss fight of Kena: Bridge Of Spirits, and can be found guarding Rusu’s house. Deal with all the javelin-throwing Branch-Tosser enemies and the Wood Knight will appear, wielding a massive chunk of wood as a club. This boss loves winding up massive attacks and combos that you’ll need to be careful to parry or avoid, because they’ll very quickly drain your block meter. Distract him with your Rot and use your Bow to destroy the orange crystals poking out of its body to speed up this dangerous fight.

Sprout Captain

Once you restore the four Ancient Shrines (the Fishing Shrine can be a little confusing), you’ll need to return to the Guardian Tree to open it up. Inside is the Sprout Captain – an upgrade from the lowly first boss, this time equipped with two blades and a series of flurry attack combos that can quickly wear you down. It’s best to learn how to parry for this fight, because it can be difficult to keep dodging and blocking these attacks in quick succession.

Mage

Coming hot on the heels of the previous boss fight, a Mage appears at the entrance to the Lantern Cavern to which you must head after opening the Guardian Tree. This Mage has a couple of annoying tricks up its sleeve, such as the ability to summon minions and heal itself, but in reality it’s quite the pushover. Save one of your Rot Actions for when it attempts to heal, and halt it in its tracks with a Rot Hammer or Rot Infused Arrow attack. To learn more about these and other powers, check out our Kena: Bridge Of Spirits abilities and upgrades walkthrough.

Shrine Guardian

I contend that at this early stage of the game, given Kena’s power level, the Shrine Guardian is one of the toughest bosses in the game, particularly on Expert and Master level. This dangerous foe has tonnes of health and is backed up by an ever-respawning host of smaller enemies that hound you for the entire fight. Another big issue with the Shrine Guardian is that the parry windows are far trickier than other bosses you’ve encountered so far, so you’ll need to stay on the move throughout this fight.

The good news is that just like the Wood Knight you can target the orange crystals on its body to chunk its health down faster, and when it does the ground root attack, the Deadzone Heart on its back opens up, allowing you to target it with your Rot and pulse to destroy it, dealing even more damage. Take your time with this fight, it’s trickier than you might think.

Corrupt Taro

The first “act” of Kena: Bridge Of Spirits tasks you with helping the spirit of Taro, the brother of twins Beni and Saiya who you meet in the tutorial. Before Taro’s spirit can move on, you must defeat Corrupt Taro – a hulking, menacing werewolf-like boss which has an array of dangerous attacks and goes through two phases – first with a sword, and then with just claws. Watch out in particular for when Corrupt Taro starts to circle you in the second phase, because when he runs at you you’ll need to time the dodge just right or the boss will pick you up and squeeze you (as part of an unblockable attack, I might add), dealing massive damage.

Vine Knight

As part of the Adira’s Love quest, you must journey to Rufus’ Barn in the Fields area of the Kena: Bridge Of Spirits map, and clear the corruption that exists there. This corruption is personified by the Vine Knight, a powerful boss which at first seems very similar to the Wood Knight from earlier. The Vine Knight comes equipped with some deadly long-ranged vine attacks and a tower shield which it uses to protect itself from your attacks. Build up your Courage and distract it with the Rot – but keep your distance and work on shooting the orange crystals from afar with your Bow to whittle down its health.

Stone Guardian

Like the Shrine Guardian, the Stone Guardian boss fight is made much harder by the fact that you must also deal with endless numbers of small axe-wielding enemies. The Stone Guardian itself is slow and its hurling rock attacks easy to dodge, but it’s also invulnerable to regular attacks thanks to its stony outer shell, so you must use your newfound Spirit Bomb ability to temporarily reveal its orange crystals, which you can pop for more damage and destroy the invulnerable stone armour for that body part.

And just like with the Shrine Guardian, save a Rot Action for when the Stone Guardian does its reaching-into-the-ground attack, because you can target the Deadzone Heart on its back and detonate it for tonnes of damage.

Rot Eater

The Rot Eater can be found deep in the Village Heart cave, in a circular room filled – at first – with Moths and Lizard enemies. The Rot Eater itself is a larger version of those lizards, but it’s not terribly dangerous as boss fights go. When it raises its head and its neck turns red, shoot it with an arrow to interrupt the attack and deal a big chunk of damage. Everything else is very ordinary in this fight – there are some basic swipe attacks, some summoning of smaller enemies… You know the drill.

Corrupt Woodsmith

Just as Taro’s corrupted form needed to be vanquished before his spirit could be freed, so too must you face the Corrupt Woodsmith in order to free Adira. The big hint of this fight is the glowing link between the Woodsmith and the central stone monolith guarding the Village Heart. Turns out the Woodsmith is invulnerable unless you use a Spirit Bomb to open the monolith up and shoot the Heart 3 times. Doing this makes the Woodsmith vulnerable for a short while. After that she’ll slam the monolith a few times to fix it (creating shockwaves you must jump over), and the whole sequence starts over.

At half health, the monolith will be destroyed, and things turn into a more regular 1v1 boss fight. She’ll throw bolas of fire at you, and there’ll be more shockwaves to jump over. On Expert and Master difficulty every little attack hurts a lot, so take care and take your time with this fight, because it’s one of the more dangerous fights in the game.

Mask Maker

There are three paths that must be followed and their bosses defeated before you can confront Toshi – the leader of the Village. The path west from the Mask Shrine takes you down the Mask Maker path, and after placing some incense pots on the correct plinths (look at the faces on the pots/plinths!) you’ll face the Mask Maker himself.

The Mask Maker has a fan of teleporting from place to place, which makes it difficult to wind up big attacks like the Rot Hammer against him. Instead you must stay vigilant for his sword attacks that come from nowhere, and pick your moments while he’s winding up attacks of his own in order to interrupt him with a Rot Action and deal some real damage.

Hunter

The Hunter is at the end of the south-east path of the Village, and she’s a nightmare to deal with. She stays in the air near-constantly, raining arrows down and dodging your own arrows unless you time them carefully. After enough damage she’ll fall to the ground for a short time, where you can whale away at her until she decides to do something other than sit there taking damage.

The main attack to watch out for here is the arrow which creates a spherical shockwave outwards. You can only avoid this shockwave by Spirit Dashing through it. Otherwise, this fight is actually quite straightforward – albeit rather frustrating.

Warrior

Of all the fights in Kena: Bridge Of Spirits, this one feels the most like a Sekiro fight. The Warrior guards the watery south-west path of the Village, and he wields a large glowing glaive which he’ll thrust and spin at you while mixing up his timings – some attacks fast, and some slow, to try and upset your rhythm.

As with the Hunter, the Warrior will sometimes unleash a shockwave barrier attack which you must Spirit Dash through to avoid damage. And watch out for his quick swipe attack while in melee – the red symbols you see just beforehand indicate that it’s another unblockable attack that you must dodge or pay for in massive amounts of your health.

Corrupt Toshi

At last, it is time to face Toshi, the corrupted leader of the Village – and hopefully it goes better than last time. Toshi uses his staff to send out more shockwaves that you must Spirit Dash through, and with his sword he can unleash long combos of sweeping fire attacks that you must basically learn to parry or continually dodge, or else.

His attacks borrow from the three previous bosses, so there’s a lot of different patterns to learn and prepare for in this extended penultimate fight. One tip I found extremely useful: make sure before you start this fight you have the Rot Infused Spirit Bomb ability upgrade, because it will slow Toshi to a halt for a short while, allowing you to safely get some extra attacks in.

Corrupt Rot God

The final boss fight in Kena: Bridge Of Spirits is also likely the longest and most intense of them all. And the worst part is: you’re facing the Rot itself! Your friends and companions, turned sour! Oh, how dramatic!

The first and second phases of this fight involves targeting the corruption on the Rot Gods body, while the final phase involves waiting until he rears up, then targeting the spears in its back with your own Rot friends that you managed to snatch back onto your side from the previous two phases. And needless to say, try to dodge its massive swipe and laser beam attacks, because, well, they hurt.

It’s a long final fight, but well worth the effort when you finally do complete it!

So there you have it: all 16 boss fights in Kena: Bridge Of Spirits, with some context and a few tips on how to tackle each one. If you’re after more general advice on how to progress through the game, your best bet is to check out our Kena: Bridge Of Spirits tips and tricks. If you’re working on 100% completing the game, check out our Kena: Bridge Of Spirits achievements list for some help, or let us help you hunt down all the Kena: Bridge Of Spirits Spirit Mail.