From 100% to 19.58%: why Dark Dragon Blade mastery is locked

The seven that land while you play and the two pieces to note

Seven technique trophies pop practically on their own in the first few hours, because the game pushes you to use them:

The Art of Obliteration — 100.0%. Perform an obliteration.

Bloody Raven Form — 100.0%. Take on the bloody raven form.

The Art of the Bloodbath — 86.74%. Perform a bloodbath.

Crow Gear: tricopter cable — 90.55%. Use the tricopter cable.

The Art of the Bloody Massacre — 76.86%. The payoff of the fury state: fill the purple circle by killing and obliterating, and when it is full press L3 + R3. It instantly kills everything in sight.

It is worth understanding it properly, not just unlocking it: on Master Ninja difficulty, wiping a whole room at once is the difference between getting through and dying.

The other two Crow Gear pieces have a fixed chapter, and that is where planning matters:

Crow Gear: dragonfly cloak — 73.01%. Obtained in chapter 06, used for gliding. The moment you have it, the chapter makes you use it.

That same chapter hides Free as a Bird, which asks you to glide through it without hitting a single obstacle and with automatic movement turned off. Attempting it on the first run saves you a return trip.

Crow Gear: water strider — 63.62%. The piece that lets you skim across water. Obtained in chapter 10, and it pops the moment the chapter hands it to you.

And as in 06, the chapter has its own no-collision traversal challenge. If you are going for the platinum, do it while you are there instead of replaying later.

Each mastery asks for a specific weapon

The four technique mastery trophies name the weapon in their description, so there is no leeway: if you do not have it equipped, they do not count.

Sword Mastery — 61.04%. Use Takeminakata to hit 5 or more enemies at once.

Piercing Mastery — 38.71%. Use Yatousen — the drill, Yakumo's second weapon, obtained halfway through the story — to deal heavy damage in a short time.

The trophy does not ask for a number: it asks you to keep the drill buried in a large enemy until the damage counter spikes. Against a boss or a heavy enemy it works first try. It sits well below the others because plenty of people switch weapons before the drill has time to build up.

Hammer Mastery — 33.46%. Use Magatsuhi to bloodbath-kill 5 or more enemies in a short time.

Tool Mastery — 47.46%. Use Kage-Hiruko to defeat an enemy you have launched into the air.

These two no longer land by themselves: you have to go after them.

And two more that depend not on the weapon but on how you fight:

The Way of the Dragon — 68.53%. Defeat 3 enemies in a row with an ultimate technique.

All three must fall in the same execution, not one after another. The reliable way is to wait for a tight group and unleash it there, with Takeminakata, the weapon with the widest sweeping attacks. If it resists, any wave-based combat trial hands you packed groups over and over with no searching.

Combo Mastery — 55.63%. Land a 2,000-point combo.

Two thousand is not a high figure: it falls against any sizeable group if you hold the chain. What breaks it is almost never missing, it is getting hit: the more open the arena and the further away the remaining enemies, the easier it is.

The two masteries that require finishing the campaign

Dark Dragon Blade Mastery — 19.58%. Learn every weapon skill of the Dark Dragon Blade, Ryu's weapon.

There is a prerequisite that is not obvious: the blade is obtained by completing boss trial 13, which only exists once the campaign is over. Until then the trophy is locked and there is no way to make progress on it.

It is the rarest of the five masteries, and that is exactly why: playing is not enough, you have to clear a boss trial first. The same prerequisite explains why Bearer of Darkness, which sounds like a plot trophy, is held by only 25.04%.

Combat Mastery — 21.57%. Learn every combat skill, the ones that do not depend on a weapon.

Unlike the five weapon masteries, this branch is shared, so the experience you spend on it is not split across weapons: everything invested here counts once and always applies.

Ryu's playthrough additionally holds 13 combat skills of his own spread across his three chapters. If you miss one, go back through chapter select: nothing is lost.

That jump from the first obliteration's 100% to the last mastery's 19.58% is the game in miniature: what it teaches, everyone does; what it keeps behind a boss trial, one player in five does.