After all, Metal Gear Rising : Revengenace has kicked me around to it's own contempt at times, and I could very easily be here bemoaning this last hurrah for a game that has had it's way with me numerous times throughout this journey.
That isn't the case here though, and Wolf's Side Story is a soft landing at the end of a very bumpy ride.
This final chapter focuses on IF Prototype LQ-84i - Otherwise known as Blade Wolf, where you get to play out the backstory to Raiden's companion within the main game.
Wolf's story tells of how he is initially under the command of Mystral, and his desire to align to the values of freedom she is allegedly also fighting for. They're both also loosely associated to another character called Khamsin, and I say loosely purely because the game does a terrible job of filling out Khamsin's character. We all know about Mystral. She's the first major boss in the main game, but Khamsin seems to just exist for the sake of filling out the end of the chapter boss fight role. No proper introduction or fleshed out character development along the way. He briefly appears at the start, says a few lines of nothingness and the next time you see him is when you're fighting him at the end - Presumably to stop Blade Wolf from escaping and finding his freedom.
The biggest difference to Raiden and Jetstream Sam, of course, is the fact that Blade Wolf does not handle like either of the human characters you will have experienced in Metal Gear Rising. He's actually a bit more clunky, definitely more unorthodox and has a much more limited move-set. This made him slightly less enjoyable to play as for me personally, but I respect the desire to offer something a bit different to the norm.
The 4 trophies are an exact carbon copy of Sam's Side Story - It's just a much easier all round completion for this particular set. Run through the chapter once on any difficulty to unlock the trophy for simply beating the episode, and you'll also be able to unlock the trophy for 30 Hunt Kills along the way - Which are just the Blade Wolf equivalent of stealth kills.
I opted to run through the episode the second time aiming to beat it on Revengeance difficulty in less than hour. Same rules apply as before - the "restart from checkpoint" feature is key, as every time you die, the amount of time you took to reach that point will accumulate towards your total one hour time limit, and restarting from checkpoint prior to death will cancel this out, which helps keep the timer down.
Luckily, this is a much easier and shorter experience than the Jetstream Sam DLC, so you're nowhere near as precious for time. It's also possible to surpass every fight with pure stealth, and avoiding combat is a great way to progress steadily without burning up too much of the clock. If you get detected, just restart from checkpoint and go again - It's much more time-efficient than fighting the waves of enemies off.
To add to this, Khamsin is also a much easier final boss than Senator Armstrong too. He will kill you in one hit, which can be detrimental to time if you've been fighting him for a while, but there is a trick. If you constantly bait him into fighting you from a distance, this will trigger a sliding charge attack which you can parry for around 10% of his HP each time, and will also only minimally damage you. Chaining these attacks together will see a significantly easier boss fight than anything else previously experienced, and you can beat him within a couple of minutes.
It's a night and day comparison to the days it took me to beat Senator Armstrong with Jetstream Sam.
This technique won't work with the final trophy, to beat Khamsin on Hard difficulty without taking any damage, but he has a very limited move-set which is much quicker to understand and fight against. It'll take a slight learning curve as you study the attack patterns, but it's one of the easiest bosses in the game to no damage.
Is Wolf's Side Story shallow on content, fairly uninspired and ultimately left feeling a little bit light? Yes. Am I also thankful for it? Yes. So we'll just draw a line under this one and call it a day.
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