You start out in an alley by the club’s entrance; ignore the two guys hanging out and head forward to the entryway under the “Open” sign. The doorman won’t attack you right away, so take advantage of his kindness by sweeping his leg or palm-striking him, letting you get some free first hits in. Once he’s down, head through the door and down the stairs. Ignore the bartender, turn left, and sprint toward the two enemies there. Jump over the counter to the right and grab the bat, then use it to quickly take them both out. Speak to the bartender when they’re down to receive the Finding Sean Board item.
Once they’re down, head through the double doors they were guarding, then continue through the hallway and through the next set of doors. You’ll be in the club’s main room, and it’s packed with foes. There are bottles to throw on almost every table, so start the fight out by sprinting away from enemies and throwing bottles at them. If you stun an enemy with a bottle and the other enemies aren’t too close, feel free to get a few hits in. Use the elevation changes on either side of the dance floor to both separate and damage foes — if you kick or throw enemies off the ledge onto the dance floor, it does a surprising amount of damage.
These high glass walls are vaultable, so use them to prevent yourself being surrounded
Once you’re down to the final few enemies, save your Focus Bar energy, since you’ll be facing a tough miniboss once the last enemy is down. A cutscene will start, and then you’ll find yourself on the dance floor against a lady with some long legs and big shoes. She’s a type of enemy you’ll see throughout the game, a Dancer. This enemy type is a glass cannon, so you’ll want to start the fight by using a Focus Attack to incapacitate her.
She has a number of guardbreak and sweep attacks, so your best bet is simply to hold guard or dodge backwards and retaliate once her combo is over. You can try to parry some attacks if you’re confident in timings, or use dodges instead of avoids. You’ll take a lot of structure damage while guarding; when this happens just run away and regain your structure, then reengage her once you’re ready.
Saving your Focus Bar for the dancer is an important trick to shortening the fight with her
After defeating her, use the Shrine that sits below the DJ booth on the right side of the back of the dance floor. Weapon Proficiency is a good upgrade choice for this level. From the shrine, take a look to your right and you’ll see a door with a keycard reader on it — this is your shortcut once you collect the Disciple’s Pass. Then turn around, jump up off the dance floor, and head towards the double doors to the right of the bar. Also note the door with the keypad to your right — once you get the Club Code, you can return here to grab the Fire Key from some enemies inside.
Enemies will come busting out of it — do your Kung-Fu on them, then attack the girl with her back turned — she’s on your right just inside the room the enemies came from. There are a couple of tougher enemies further into the room, so take advantage of the couches to create space, and utilize the bottles on the tables as well. Avoid going up the stairs, since you’ll end up drawing more enemies into the fight.
Once you’ve dispatched all the baddies here, you can head up the stairs and do the same to the three hanging out on the second level. There’s a bottle you can grab on your left as you reach the top of the stairs, and another on the right-hand table — try to use both bottles on the guy, since he’s tougher than the two women. Inspect the video playing on the wall, then head through the nearby doors.
A vision of things to come
Grab a bottle off the bar and then turn left and throw it at one of the men on the right to start the fight here. Draw them backwards towards the bar, since fighting them in the narrower entryway there makes it harder for them to surround you. You can talk with the cowering woman, then you’ll have to fight two Juggernauts at once. Before engaging them, punch one of the two screens — it will drop a weapon when it breaks. Pick it up and then try to separate the two Juggernauts. You can do this by positioning so that one is standing behind the other, then getting in close enough for the near one to attack you; this will separate them, and you can then attempt to finish the one off before the other gets close enough. Keep moving and don’t get greedy!
Once they’re both down, you can break the other screen to get a new weapon, and then head through the door they were guarding. Despite all the nooks and crannies, there’s nothing in this next area, so just continue straight through the next set of double doors. There are two tough enemies in this next area. In particular, they have lethal moves they can use when jumping over the bar, so aggro them and then pull them to the middle of the room. They are both similar enemies to the dancer you fought earlier, and can be dealt with similarly.
The safest strategy is to dodge backwards, then engage them with a series of heavy attacks once they end their combo. You should also take advantage of the bottles on the table to the left of where you entered. There is also a bat sitting on the other side of the bar, on the left end of it (relative to where you came in).
You’ll see this a lot if you fight them by the bar
Once they’re both down, grab the bat from behind the bar if you didn’t already, and then go through the nearby metal gate. Take out the guys spectating for some heals. Look down into the pit: you want to drop by the two regular guys fighting, not the Juggernaut and his opponent. Take them out as fast as you can, then take out the smaller of your two remaining foes. It’s a confined space, but try your best to keep far away from the Juggernaut while finishing the other guy. Then take down the big man, and leave via the only exit.
Head out into the patio and through the door there, and you’ll find yourself facing the first of Sean’s Disciples. They have a number of quick combos that end in guardbreaks, and are really good at dodging attacks if you attack them first. Instead, you need to guard, parry, or avoid their attacks, making sure to parry or dodge the final move in the combos to avoid the structure damage. Fight this Disciple near a wall — if you do manage to parry certain moves, you’ll stun him and can then throw him into a wall. Mostly you’ll just be slowly wearing him down via the structure damage of your parries.
Once he’s defeated, you’ll receive the Disciple’s Pass, which opens the shortcut we looked at from the dance floor earlier. Now you’ll never have to fight this guy again if you don’t want to. Head through the door the Disciple was sitting next to, and you’ll find yourself in a hallway with two doors at the far end. The door with the keycard reader on the left leads forward, while the door straight ahead leads to a key item you can only access after you’ve gotten to the CEOs computer during the Tower level. Once you have the Jinfeng’s Computer board item, you should return here (see Hacker’s Key note below).
Getting the Hacker’s Key
Once you have Jinfeng’s Computer on your board: the keycard-locked door from the dance floor room takes you to where the straight-ahead door in the image above leads. You’ll need to go up the stairs, fight your way through a series of enemies, and then enter the sound booth — speak with the man in the glasses there and say “Computer Access”, and then “The Corporation”; he’ll give you the Hacker’s Key, which you can then use to access Jinfeng’s computer.
Once you head through the next keycard-protected door (left in the above image), don’t attack anyone. Take your first left and use the Shrine near the stretching girl. If you can, you should choose the Focus Regain upgrade. Go out into the hallway, turn left, and head straight towards the double doors at the other end of the room. Speak with the man there and ask him about the Trials to receive the Three Trials Board item, then go through the doors. You’ll find yourself in darkness — continue forward and you’ll see Sean heading through doors at the other end of the area. Continue that way until you’re at the last big set of wooden doors (this might be hard because of the way the camera pans up to the woman speaking, but do your best).
Fight the camera and stand by the indicated door, then rush in as soon as it opens
As soon as the door opens, rush inside and you can get a free takedown on one of the enemies there. You’ll want to quickly head up the stairs, and use both the stairs and the narrow walkways above to prevent yourself from being surrounded. There are a lot of bricks and sticks on the upper level here, so use them!
Enemies will struggle to reach you (and often injure each other) when you fight them in narrow confines
Once the regular enemies are down, the woman who blabbed at your earlier will start talking again. You don’t have to actually fight her, but you should if you need to regain a death.
If you are going to fight her: While she talks, go find a weapon or a brick and use it on her. If you didn’t use all the bricks around here, it’s a good idea to run away from her, pick up bricks, and throw them at her. Once you’ve used up all the bricks, she should be pretty close to down already. She’s another of Sean’s disciples, so you can use similar tactics on her (parry and dodge).
Head through the door you saw Sean leave through (it’s below where the talking woman was standing). You’ll enter a dark hallway with flashing lights; follow it to the end, and you’ll enter an outdoor area facing a woman with a staff. She won’t attack you until you attack her or pick up the other staff — grab it and then try to get a few free hits on her by sprinting and attacking. She has a few 4 attack combos that should be dealt with by standing far enough away that they all miss — get close enough that she starts her combo, then back off and wait for her to finish before rushing in and getting a few free hits in. She will also sometimes use single attacks, a guardbreak and a regular one, but if you stay far enough away, they should also miss.
Maintain distance to reduce the risk of whiffing a parry/avoid, and attack her when she finishes her combo
When she goes down, grab her staff and continue into the next area. Make sure you look at all three bits of writing on the wall, then keep heading forward (there’s nothing in any of the side areas). You’ll see a box behind a counter, but we can’t do anything with it until we get the Fire Key key from behind the key-code protected door, so just keep moving forward and through the double doors you find.
This next area can be a pain in the butt, so mentally prepare yourself. When you enter it, try to take down the woman on the right first — she’s no pushover, so you’ll probably have to fight her while avoiding the other guy. There is a stick in the far right corner of this area if you need and want another weapon.
Once she’s down, you’ve got an extra tough Disciple to deal with. He also ends combos with a guardbreak and is difficult to attack, so try to parry, parry, parry, dodge and slowly wear him down. If you took the Focus Regain upgrade, you can strictly avoid and then damage him via your Focus attacks.
Use the tables to keep your opponents separated
Once the disciple is down, you can go up the stairs and into the building. Make sure you use the Shrine on your right — Focus Regain is still a good choice, though you could also choose to increase your max structure. When you’re ready, head through the doors and face the second boss, Sean the Fighter.
Unabashed FromSoftware fanboy still learning to take his time with games (and everything else, really). The time he doesn't spend on games is spent on music, books, or occasionally going outside.
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