Boss Fight: Berial

Berial is one of the toughest of the early bosses, in that it's difficult to attack him without getting hit; his attacks are quick and difficult to dodge. Luckily, you have a bit of a crutch to work with here, as his attacks will constantly be destroying the buildings in the area, which will release green orbs to refill your health bar.

Berial's big and mean, but you still have to take him down.

There isn't a huge amount to say about Berial's phases; he really doesn't have any discrete shifts in his tactics, although he will begin using more attacks later on in the fight. He begins the fight by slowly moving around and attacking you with sweeping and extremely fast sword strokes. In general, you want to try and jump over these strokes, but they often come down while you're attacking, making them difficult to dodge. Again, though, you won't have to worry too much about being hit, since there will be an awful lot of green orbs to work with here.

Early Phase

Video Walk-through

Belial is, oddly enough, one of the more difficult boss fights in the game, since you won't have many abilities to use against him.

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At the start of the fight, fire away at Berial with your gun and let him approach you; you want to lure him to one side of the small town here, so that his attacks won't destroy all of the buildings right off the bat. You can also charge your Exceed bar if you like, since the bullets won't do much damage. You want to leave some of the buildings behind and save them for later in the fight, when you'll need the green orbs that they drop.

The best strategy for attacking Berial here appears to just be to launch yourself into the air at his face and whack him with your mid-air combo. If you like, you can try to get behind him and attack his haunches, but it can be difficult to maneuver here, especially since you want to keep him on one side of the area. He has three types of swings, including one that hits high, one that hits low, and one that strikes downward directly in front of him, but telling which one he's charging up is difficult in the amount of time that you have to try and dodge it; you will wind up getting hit quite a bit. That's not a bad thing, though, so long as you get back up to him and start swinging away. If you're having a lot of problems, try swinging your weapon at his feet to begin with, then jumping and attacking when he swings at you, as he'll likely swing low.

Powering Down

With enough damage done, Berial's flames will drop and he'll fall to the ground. At this point, quickly jump near his head and use your Devil Bringer; you'll automatically throw him back to the ground. If you have enough time, run back to his head and use the Devil Bringer while you're on the ground. The animation for the second attack is different, but they both do heavy damage.

When Berial's stun wears off, though, he'll resheathe himself in flames and cause big damage in a wide area around him; you need to run backwards away from him as soon as you see this animation beginning. This will likely destroy any remaining buildings in the area, so hurry around and heal yourself as needed.

If you can Buster Berial, he'll take a bunch of damage.

Finishing Him Off

Berial will use some new attacks after his stun, including a pillar-of-flame motion where he'll pound the ground and cause three to four pillars of flame to shoot up out of it. He'll yell out "FIRE!" as he casts this spell. These appear directly underneath you and can't be dodged by jumping, so dodge them with your sideways roll maneuver if possible. He'll also introduce a forward foot-stomp ability that will knock you backwards.

Overall, though, this fight is similar to the first phase of the fight, so get up close and personal, swing away, and try to stun him again. You should be able to stun him twice and deal real damage to him before finishing him off with normal attacks.