Cave Story (Doukutsu Monogatari) Final (Extra) Dungeon FAQ Updates: February 27th Finished the v.1 of the FAQ. More updates may follow. FAQ Author: SkyeWelse email: skyewelse@retro-type.com You may feel free to use this FAQ in anyway you see fit, I only ask that you credit me as the original author and credit Aeon Genesis (http://agtp.romhack.net/) for their translation of Cave Story. This FAQ is based on their translation of places, items, and names. Also, while not required, it would be nice if you emailed me just to let me know that you were. All legal jargon aside, I’ll start off by saying that this is the first FAQ for a game that I have ever written and I wasn’t going to write it at all until I realized that there wasn’t one already available for this secret level, or at least one that I could find. After playing through this challenging stage, of which now doesn’t seem all that hard considering all the times I’ve gone through it to make this FAQ…ahem, I just decided it would be better to write my findings down so that they might benefit other players as well. Even though this stage is officially called the Sacred Ground, a lot of people refer to it as hell, simply because it looks like hell and it plays like hell. It can be quite the challenge indeed. There are now several fans out there who enjoy competing for how long it takes them to complete this level, henceforth the purpose of the Nikumaru counter to document the time it takes to complete the level. So what exactly is this final secret level? Well, that’s the real trick. It’s pretty secret and I wouldn’t have found it myself unless I had originally found it by reading another Cave Story FAQ in the first place. But basically you have to meet several requirements in the game in order to unlock the possibility of exploring this stage. (Some Spoilers) 1. You must meet the criteria for obtaining the Booster Jet Pack 2.0 2. You must meet ALL the criteria for rescuing Curly *3. You must obtain the Nikumaru Counter if you wish to be timed through the stage as a speedrun, however you can still access the secret stage without it. -Thanks to Z for pointing this out. 4. You need to enter the house on the balcony area (it will be open if you’ve met the criteria) after defeating the final boss, well normal ending final boss anyway. The real boss is inside this secret level. For more information on this you should check out ReroRero’s Cave Story FAQ located here: http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~mono/dmguide.txt and also hosted here at the GameFlaws Cave Story tribute site: http://www.gameflaws.com/cavestory/dmguide.txt For all intended purposes, this FAQ is meant only to be for this secret level of Cave Story and while I have plans to make a tribute site for Doukutsu Monogatari, I have no current plans to make a FAQ for the rest of the game since ReroRero’s guide has pretty much covered most of the other aspects of the game, minus one Item which will most likely be updated soon once either myself or other players discover its location, something called the Beast Fang. I hope this FAQ will be helpful to fans trying to finish this challenging extra final level. Good luck and enjoy! Recommended weapons before going in: *Spur* or *Snake*, *Nemesis* (for both Quote and Curly) and *Super Missiles* *Note regardless on whether you've picked up the Nemesis, Curly will always be using the level 1 Nemesis. This level is designed to be a testament of your skill and ability at Cave Story. It also designed as a means of timing yourself to compete with other players for a level speed run challange. In this level there seems to be multiple strategies available for completing it. The first is by taking advantage of the *Spur* and not having to worry about powering up any other weapons since it can charge up to any level you want based on how much time you allocate for it to charge. This can save time and patience if you are like me and hate to have to worry about switching over to other weapons quickly to power them up. The same can go for the Nemesis as it is a very powerful weapon and is at its most powerful at level 1. The other strategy and the one that is recommended for killing bosses quicker and saving time for those of you who are interested in a speed run through the stage, is to boost the level of your *Super Missiles* launcher. If you can do this, this weapon will literally eat away at the bosses' health bars. This FAQ will not be primarily for speedrun players, but I'll try to give some tips to consider when going through the stage, such as taking out the flying butes (cherub angels) with the Nemesis since they have to fall to the ground to die before releasing weapon energy making it easier for you not to collect the weapon energy. Also, leveling up your missiles will be invaluable and the easiest way to do this and save time is by using the missiles to destroy the weapon energy capsules at just the right timing and collecting the weapon energy. Also, using the Snake to take out the deleet doors (barriers) through the walls in order to save time. Sacred Ground (Hell) Walkthrough *Note* If you need to exit the Prefab house where this all starts, simply jump over the crevice in the floor and examine the bookself and you will be prompted to leave the house or not. Starting from the save point in the Prefab house at the end of the game. Drop down the crevice in the floor. The Nikumaru Counter Activates The Counter Moved… You feel a black wind blow through you. All weapons dropped to Level 1! Sacred Ground - B1 Welcome to hell. If you don't believe me, simply drop down to the right and read the sign. Set before you, you will see six deathtrap pits scaling down to the left. The trick here is to use the Booster 2.0 efficiently enough to conserve just enough fuel to propel yourself over the pits as you descend to the bottom. Though, after clearing these six pits, you then drop down to a smaller area which seems to be covered in spikes and more deathtraps. If you have conserved enough fuel, you can try to propel yourself to the right and then upward so that you land on the high platform. This can be tricky to do and an easier route might be just to clear the six deathtraps and then aim for one of the smaller spikes and take –5 damage and use that temporary invulnerability to land and gain your fuel back. Then you can make your way to the top with ease. Make sure that you don’t fall in the single deathtrap pit in between the platform you’ve just landed on and the right-hand drop point. There have been many a time where I landed this flight perfectly only to accidentally forget about jumping over the pit and falling right in. Drop down the right side and you will come to more deathtrap pits, this time an entire row of them. It is easy to clear this with the propulsion of the Booster 2.0, however the real trick here to this is to conserve just enough fuel so that you can clear the pits and have just enough fuel remaining for your decent to the bottom. This can take a lot of practice getting used to, especially if you are used to the booster. Of course by now, you’ve had ample practice already in the Last Cave (Hidden) area. It helps though if you can try and clear the six deathtrap pits by only using the booster two times for less than a second each. It’s tricky, but easy to pull off if you get used to it and will allow you a better chance of landing on the next possible safe platform in one single use of the booster. After you land on the platform above the spikes you hear a voice…. “Did you know that the witch-woman Jenka once had a brother? His name was Ballos. Like his sister, he wielded powers far beyond those of mortals…” There are also star capsules which will give you +10 if you can collect the contents after destroying them on the way. A missile to this capsule at the right time will let you collect all of the energy inside and is a relatively painless way to charge up your missile launcher. As you make your descent down the left-hand wall you will need to time your Booster 2.0 propulsion at just the right second for you to land on the small ledge where you will find a *life capsule*. -Got a *Life Capsule*- Max health Increased by 5! From this ledge you will get a fresh fuel start with the Booster 2.0 and you can drop down and fly over to the door. Here you will hear the voice again: “He used his magical powers to help and guide people, and the people loved and trusted him in return. Even more than they did their own king…” Here you’ll find Curly lying down in front of the door. Curly: “Ooh…” -Connected her body to yours with the rope.- (And no, you can’t leave without picking Curly up) Sacred Ground – B2 Cave Story is a fun game, but no one said it was a fair one. This section can be a challenging one simply because of the unpredictability of the falling block chunks and a new type of enemy called a ‘bute’ that looks like something of a cherub angel of sorts. (Kid Icarus anyone?) There will be several types of butes, these are the flying type. These can be rather pesky creatures because they fly around chaotically and run into you for -5 damage and they are all about flooding you with their bute companions. The falling blocks are no walk in the park either because they tend to fall on you when you least expect it and when you can’t make it out of the way. The nice thing is that the size of the block doesn’t matter when dishing out the damage as a hit from any block will do -10 damage. There are multiple strategies to consider when making it through this section. The first would be to try and make it through the section as fast as humanly possible and using the Booster 2.0 propulsion to fly through quickly. Doing this will most likely make you run into several enemies and blocks but if you are fast enough you can cover some good distance by taking advantage of the fact that you are temporarily invulnerable for a few seconds after taking a hit. If you are opting for this method, one trick is to try and fly over the blocks or even through the blocks on the top-most side of them. It seems that only the bottom and bottom-corners of the block register a hit. Another strategy is the careful strategy in which you walk slowly and take your time firing at the butes and dodging blocks and collecting the health that they leave behind. If it seems that several blocks are in position to hit you can hit the jump button quickly and jet boot forward or backward to avoid them. About half way through the corridor you will hear the voice again: “The Jealous King had Ballos apprehended and thrown into prison, where his punishment was brutal and cruel. Humans can be terrible creatures indeed…” As you approach the end of this corridor you will see an opening that you can drop down into to enter the next section. You will also hear more of the history of Ballos: “Under the extreme cruelty of the torture, Ballos’ magical abilities finally ran wild. The king was engulfed in the swirl of magic and destroyed in an instant. In a single night, the kingdom that Ballos so loved was reduced to ashen ruins.” Drop down into the next area. In this area, Curly will be conscious and will be helping you out by covering your back whenever you fire a shot. If you have the *Nemesis* and do not have it equipped, she will default to using it. Even if you have it powered up to a weaker version of itself, Curly will use it at level 1… which is good. As you enter the room you will notice that there are hearts that are easily accessible on the right-hand side: 2 hearts = +4 health. Be extra careful when dropping down to collect them as falling into the spikes will decrease your heath by -10 now. If you slowly walk off the right side of the ledge you land on from above, you should be able to grab the hearts and make a smooth getaway. The nice thing about this, and I’m not sure if the creator intentionally left this in to help the player or if it was just an oversight, but you can fly back to the top room and return to this room again as many times as you need to replenish your health. If you time it correctly you can fly all the way back to the top section from the ledge where the hearts are in one single boost. When you are ready to continue on you should drop down to the ground and run under the first pillar and stopping and holding position directly under the second pillar. Oh, and you should be ‘guns’a’blazin’ right about now as well. If you are correctly in position you should be able to take out all of the grounded butes with swords and the flying ones should diagonally fly into the second pillar and fly back directly into your line of fire. While it seems at first that there are going to be a never ending supply of flying butes making their way over to you, it’s not the case. You’ll clear them out as long as you keep blasting away at them. It’s better that way so that you don’t have to worry about them later on. When you’ve cleared all of the enemies on the screen move forward. You’ll notice that the two crushing death traps have fallen down on the pillars above you while the third one is waiting to fall on you as you pass under it. If you just keep moving forward and firing away you’ll be fine and you’ll take out the remaining three sword-wielding butes on the ground. When you’ve done this jump up and take care of the archer bute. Be careful though as the arrows they fire can be hard to dodge and while they look like weak little toothpicks, they do a considerable –8 points of damage, which can really add up if you are not careful. The basic strategy for attacking them is to wait for them to fire and then attack them either just after they’ve fired their shot or when they are reloading. Jump up on the ledge with the spikes on either side taking care not to jump on them as they hurt. Jump up to the next ledge where you will encounter another new enemy, the ‘mesa’. These are big fat versions of the butes and they pick up and throw blocks at you which can be quite damaging. Not too hard to defeat these guys simply because their range of attack never changes and you can time your shots. The only real annoyance is that if you shoot at them while they’ve thrown their block, there is a chances that the block will take the brunt of the shot instead of them. If you have the spur you can time it between block throws and jump up a bit to fire the laser and it should go over the sword butes’ heads and hit the second mesa. The sword butes will block anything until they charge at you and they won’t do that unless you come closer to them. As you clear out the enemies you’ll find a barrier called a ‘deleet’, which blocks access to the next passage. These are primarily placed in this level to slow you down and make you wait until the timer on the deleet counts down from 5 seconds and then explodes after doing enough damage to it. Not too hard but do not stand too close to them because they will do –12 damage to you. Sometimes they leave items such as hearts behind, so make sure not to miss your opening if you are in need of some extra life. If you are trying to do a speed run through this level then the *Snake* weapon is invaluable here as it allows you to fire through walls and will allow you to shoot these barriers before you can even make your way to them, allowing you to clear the passage faster. After blowing up the deleet barrier you will notice two archer butes on the other side taking aim at you. From their position, the can hit you even when you are on the other side of the where the deleet barrier wall was set in place. However, if you position yourself as close as possible to the block that was supporting the deleet then the arrows that are fired at you will pass directly over your head and you can then time your approach to the other side in time to take the two archers out. You can either fly above them to take them out or fall to the right of them and then jump up to shoot them, whichever is safer. At this point you will see star blocks to your right and another deleet barrier that must be shot down. If you are using the *Spur* or another long range weapon then you can aim directly at the deleet and virtually slice through the blocks like butter. This will start the countdown process of the deleet self-destructing. If you begin making your way over to the right side several flying butes will emerge from the ceiling and attempt to flock you, but if you are ready for them you can take them all out one-by-one. It is possible to skip them all and make your way through the passage after the deleet detonates, but since the ‘grey-solid looking block barrier’ located on the left wall will come down after you pass through the bottom passageway, you’ll end up having to deal with sooner or later anyway. Better now then later, unless of course you are going for a speed run. The best position to shoot them down it right underneath where the descend down from the ceiling. They won’t be damaged though until they are right above your head, but they will soon drop like flies and possibly leave hearts for you to collect with ease. *Note, that if you shoot the last two upper-right star blocks, it will reveal two pieces of +5 hearts. If you shoot the bottom section of the star blocks it will reveal more spikes that you’ll have to deal with as you make your way right. You’ll now notice that there are two revolving circle looking traps, called ‘rollings’ that move around this rectangular passageway. Simply avoid these by timing your jump down because if you hit one it is -6 damage. It is best to wait until one of them has made its way to the ground level and has already started moving to the left, this way you can drop down in behind it and move forward without it being to much of a danger. Again, you’ll have to wait for the deleet to detonate before proceeding, meaning you may have to jump these rollings a few times before the barrier is destroyed. Going through this will lead you to a heavily guarded area of butes and mesas and a new segment of Ballos’ history will be told: “Jenka, seeing her brother’s madness, confined him to this floating island. That was the most she could do. Even as he was, she could not bring herself to kill her own brother…” The *Spur* is great here because, not only does it have range when firing a charged laser, but it also has the ability to fire at enemies that are standing close to a ledge when firing upward at them. Simply aim close the side of ledge that they are standing on and it should hit them after awhile. This is a great way to take down archer enemies without getting in their way face-to-face, so try to attack from above and below them. Because these next series of rooms have so many archer butes and mesas, you’ll be dealing with a lot of arrows being fired and blocks being thrown at you so it is best to find some kind of order to which ones you should take out first to make the path safer to travel. The order that seemed to work best for me was the following: ___________________________________________ | # {2} # _L _F_# _K_ _E| | __J_ |___| ____I_ ____B _D_| | H_ _G_| ___| _A_ _C|______| N___M__|__|xx|______|_<3__|___|xx_______{1}_ Starting out at the deleet on the right-hand side {1}, first take out the archer bute at point -A- by jumping up and shooting directly at him, then step out from under cover a bit and jump up to take out the archer at point –B- since his arrows can reach you if you are fighting the butes on the right-hand side. After dispatching the bute at point –B-, kick the one at point –C- and then shoot upward from underneath at archer –D-, -E-, and –F-. This is where it can get a bit tricky. You need to find a way to take out the archer at point –G- without getting hurt too badly, once you secure his position you can dispatch everyone else with ease. Best way I found was to pick an opening and try to hover above him with the booster and shoot downward, land in his spot and immediately kill the mesa at point –H-. From either point –G- or point –B- (which ever one seems to be the safer cover from arrows) if you have the *Spur* or another long range weapon handy, use the booster to make your way upward and shoot out the archers one-by-one at points –I-, -J-, -K- and –L-. You can then make your way to point –H- and kill the two other mesas at points –M- and –N-. and also the mesa that is in the next room. Here you’ll find two +2 hearts and more spikes and a deathtrap pit next to the hearts. While it is not recommended, if you are doing a speed run, you can actually fit between these and dash into the next room without having to mess with the upper-left deleet barrier. As you approach the last stair and start blasting at the deleet, you will be bombarded by more flying butes from the ceiling. Find a spot that is safe and blast away at them, again I recommend being right underneath them if you can do it safely. They will most likely drop more hearts if you need them. Boost to the top and enter the next room. The next room looks something like this: ________________________ | {1} |M-A- |__ ___| -D-_| |_-F- |___ ___ | -C-_| |_-E- |___ ___ | -B-_| |___ {2}_____________________| Starting from the where the deleet was from point {1} if you have a long range weapon you can take out the mesa at point M. The archer at point –A- fires arrows that stick midway in the ceiling so if you time it right you can jet on over to his position and take him out. The trick here is that the archers at points –B-, -C-, and –D- will now have fired three arrows in your immediate vicinity, one coming extremely close, but if you move as far left and hug the wall at point M the arrow will miss you, buying you time to head to point –B- and kill the archer. From point –B- you can easily take out the archers at –C- and –D- using by shooting upward at them. Don’t worry about the archers at point –F- and –E- yet as they can’t hit you at your position. Head to the deleet barrier at point {2} and begin the count down process. While you are waiting, if you feel so inclined to do so, you can easily take out the archers at –E- and –F- again by shooting upward at them. Collect the hearts as necessary and move forward. In the next room you will see several spikes on the floor and walls and 3 different places to enter the next room, each guarded by a deleet barrier. As soon as you jump onto the center platform you will be flooded by flying butes emerging from the right-hand pit. If you stand right where the pillar is and keep jumping and firing you should be able to kill of the butes and even have a few of them land hearts and weapon energy on the safe ledge where you can actually have a shot at collecting it since most of it will fall into the spiked pit making it not worth your while to collect it. Since Curly fires when you fire, the first, bottom most deleet will most likely be destroyed. You can either leave through this path or try the other two. I’ve found that the top-most deleet entrance is the best way to staying safe in the next room. Just fly to the platform above taking care not to hit the spikes and destroy any flying butes that find their way into the room via the bottom deleet section. They are like wasps in how the move and bounce around trying to sting, poke you or whatever they do to you. Once the deleet is destroyed, you will see that the next room is spike central. This one is kind of difficult to make it through without sustaining damage, but this way should give you an edge in trying to keep the health you have as safe as possible. Across the way you will see a ledge suspended in the air with two archer butes while a few of the flying ones are still buzzing around. Try to time your boost to that ledge so that the arrows do not hit you. Hard to do and even harder to land on the platform killing the two of them without actually running into them or their arrows. But, if you can dodge their arrows already airborne and can make your way above them, try to land between them while firing downward. You’ll most likely take out one while the other one can be easily killed as soon as you land. From this ledge drop down to the bottom ledge and you’ll hear another piece of Ballos’ History: “It was Jenka’s daughter, Misery who made Ballos create the =Demon Crown=. She was subsequently cursed by the crown, forced to do the bidding of all who wear it. If the crown is destroyed, the curse is lifted. However…” As soon as you land, start firing at the first of two deleets you must destroy before you can move on. Of course, once you step foot on that platform you will trigger not one, but two hordes of flying butes from both the ceiling above and the right hand pit. Staying on this ledge is a good way to take damage as it can be difficult to cover yourself from being flanked by butes on both ends. My advice is to make your way back up to the ledge where the two archers were and blast away. You’ll easily kill the butes from the ceiling while the other ones from the pit will be trapped hovering under the ledge you are standing on. When the timing is right, jump back down to that bottom ledge and try to take out the remaining butes on your way down. Blast away at the second deleet and take this opportunity to blast open the star block located at the top ledge to uncover a treasure chest. -Opened the treasure chest.- Max missiles increased by 24! Wow. That’s a lot of missiles. They’ll come in handy for the boss fights coming up if you’ve managed to charge up the missile launcher to level 3. Boss Fight #1 – Heavy Press You’ll enter a small room with what looks to be a ancient looking face in the center. You need to shoot up at it and as you do you will see more and more of the boss become uncovered. This boss has only one attack, a charge beam that he fires downward every so often that does -10 damage. The tricky part is that you will have to deal with two rollings that roll along the walls just like in that first passageway where you saw them and 2-3 flying butes emerging on the screen from the left and right at all times. These can be pesky especially if you are not paying attention as they’ll either divert your attention away from the rollings and you’ll get hit by them or they’ll stab without you even realizing how they managed to pull it off. It can be quite difficult at first but after awhile you’ll get the hang of how the process works. The good news is that the butes drop life here and you should try and collect what you can. Keep firing away until the boss is destroyed. As soon as you do that, you will have very little time to make your way either to the left or to the right of it as the heavy press will come crashing down on top of your head if you are directly under it and it will kill you if you are under it… unless of course you get hit by a bute right before it falls as in some speed run cases. Collect what you can and jump down the newly made hole. Drop down to next area, You might remember this room from the Plantation stage. More Ballos history commences: “Even if the crown is destroyed, it will only rise again every time, so long as Ballos yet lives. Such is the strength of his soul that permeates the Crown.” From here you can go through the upper-right door if you have the time to spare to enter the statue carver’s room. You will see statues carved of all of the old masters of the Demon Crown with the doctor being the most recent and last in line. You can destroy these statues for weapon energy, missiles and health. While I’m not certain, I’ve found that when I destroy the statues with a full charge shot or two they tend to give more health rather than energy or missiles, but it might just be wishful thinking. After you destroy the statues, they will have been carved into something else… The statues of Quote, Sue, King, and Curly. Back outside the room where the Heavy Press lies, you can enter the bottom-right door to go on to the next area. The upper-left door won’t open. Corridor Nothing here but more outside scenery and a short intermission before taking on the big cheese of the game, Ballos. On the way you will meet the Jenka’s dog Hajime (I believe that is who this is, please correct me if I am wrong) who will talk to you: “Please kill my master. That is the only way Misery can be freed… …The only way to avoid repetition of this tragedy. My master’s name is Ballos. His magic powers have gone wild, and now he cannot even die.” After he disappears, move on to the door and enter it. Seal Chamber Move right, taking care not to step on the spikes that are in front of where you dropped down from and you will find Ballos sitting upon his golden throne. “Welcome. I am Ballos. Ages upon ages ago, in fear of enduring punishment, I allowed my magic to run wild… The magic became such that even its master’s hands could not control it. As I looked on, unable to quell its fiery rage, it took from me my loved ones, my children, my dearest wife… Their cries of agony soared above the flames. I could not avert my eyes, so I merely gazed upon the spectacle… Laughing… Jenka sealed me away, but my magic yet rages out of control even now. Long, long have I waited… Waited for the one who would finally subdue my magic’s fury… Now, kill me! Or I-- shall kill you!!” The fight commences. Boss Fight #2 – Ballos (First form) Ballos cannot be damaged right away, you’ll have to wait until he starts smiling and hold his hand out before you can start damaging him so wait for it. Ballos’ main attack is to charge forward at you, jump up and hit you, dash in mid-air to follow you and then slam the ground hoping to crush you or hit you with a shock wave that shoots up bones from the chamber. Both the shockwave and the bones can damage you so be careful when dodging. All in all it is pretty straightforward. Shoot at him, when you see him charge at boost up in the air and he’ll follow you, dash left or right and try to land a shot on him before you make your descent back to the ground, aim up and try and shoot again, dash out of the way of his ground smashing attack, fire at him, jump the shockwave and fire at him again and repeat, rinse, lather and wash. After he takes enough damage he will float above you and Summon lighting bolts to hit you. He’ll summon about 8 or so bolts so keep moving in order to dodge them all. After awhile he’ll pause in the air to summon them all again, but this time all at once (Just like Dracula from Super Castlevania). It will show you the location of the where the bolts will hit so just try and dodge and shoot him down. A good thing to do is to try and make your way away from him once he starts his lighting attacks and then make you way back to him just as he is about to end them so you can take two decent shots at him, one during the pause and one during his attempt to fry you all at once. After beating him, Ballos will fly to the top of the screen and you will see that the entire upper area is now infested with green bats called green devils. You can get life and such from these bats, but it is kind of hard to do so and do it so that you do not sustain damage. At this point you should keep moving as Ballos will now come crashing down to the ground in his new form, resembling something of that wicked moon from Zelda: Majora’s Mask. He will try and hit you so if you are not moving you’ll most likely get crushed into the ground, which will do -16 damage to you and it also means that you won’t be able to move for awhile because you’ll get stuck in the ground underneath him. As soon as you’ve dodged him… or not, the second form of the battle with Ballos will commence. Boss Fight #3 – Ballos (Second form) This form is more annoying than the first, but there are some interesting tricks you can try if you feel daring enough to do try them out. The most common (and safest) method for beating this form is to wait until he pauses after jumping and boost upward to shoot him between the eyes. If you shoot him with a powerful blast from a weapon such as the *Spur* during his pause, you should be able to damage him significantly each time you land a successful hit. If you only take away a little of his life then you are doing something wrong and not hitting him in the right place or you are using too weak a weapon. He starts off by jumping at you and each time he lands, he sends out shockwaves that you need to dodge. Best method is just to wait until he jumps, dash boost underneath him and then up and over his shockwave blast and either get ready to dodge again or get ready to fire at his eyes. When he first starts jumping he will jump twice and then pause for a bit, after that he will pause after every third jump so time it correctly and blast away at his eyes. One common mistake that I kept making when I was trying to hit him before was that I had a tendency to aim upward when boosting upward and not letting go of the analog stick in the up position. This would result in a misfire of shooting upward. You should remember to release the up button before firing so that you’ll shoot horizontally in the direction you are facing. If you are running low on life then you can use the Life Pot item in your inventory (hopefully you haven’t used it by now…), but it is better to save it for his later forms if you can spare it, You should try and at least get to Ballos third form before using up the Life Pot. Alternate Boss Strategy: You can jump on top of Ballos’ head and fire down at him whenever he hits the ground or pauses. You can also take advantage of killing off several of the green devils to replenish your health, although this method is a tad more chaotic… Alternate Boss Strategy: You can actually boost up and sit inside Ballos’ red eye socket and blast away at him either with charge shots or missiles (Level 3 missiles work the best) when he becomes vulnerable. After beating this form, Ballos will sit there and explode for awhile and then become active again, this time with eight rotating eyes. Boss Fight #4 – Ballos (Third form) Ballos will now move in a counter-clockwise pattern around the room trying to run into directly for a good amount of damage and then when hovering above you, by dropping skull bombs on top of you, which also do a fair bit of damage. This form is probably one of the hardest since it is so easy to get hit. Basically, you just need to aim at the eyes that are open and try and put them all out by firing of your most powerful attacks at them as they revolve around Ballos. You should also try to dodge the bombs as best you can. When Ballos moves closer to the ground and starts to move toward you, try to position yourself in a position where you can move in and out of one of the spaces in between his eyes and try to move with it until you are in the clear again. Try to finish this form as fast as you can as it has the most potential to end your game short. Once you have put out all of Ballos’ eyes he will move to the center of the screen and position himself for yet another transformation. Boss Fight #5 – Ballos (Final form) Here you will see Ballos’ face become something of an undead nature and you will see the scenery start to change. The floor will now become an entire bed of pitchfork looking spikes and there will be several platforms that will appear directly around Ballos of which you must stand on and fire at Ballos’ center timing your shots so that it makes it between his revolving circle of eyes and into the center of him. This can be tricky since the eyes will sometimes attack you and the areas to the left and right of the room will now become entirely infested with more of those pesky little flying butes that will try to stab at you again… oh joy. But the good news is that you can take aim at the eyes that are open and destroy them making it easier for you to channel shots into the center. One strategy that I found works rather well is if you have enough life to spare, try blasting at his center from directly beneath him while standing on the spike forks. The reason being that the spike forks only do -2 damage to you while everything else in the room does at least -5 or more. Keep it up and eventually you’ll take down his final form and you can sit back and take a breather from facing hell. Ending Sequence and Dialogue: (Contains Ending Spoilers) Curly: “It stopped… The island’s stopped falling! Maybe all of the negative energy was weakened after we beat him? ……. Well, I dunno, but it looks like our work here is done.” Voice heard from inside the room: “It hurts…” Curly: “What?” Voice heard from inside the room: “So… hot….the pain…” !? A wall made of skulls begins to close in on the two of you little by little. Curly: “The Wall!!” Voice heard from inside the room: “Help me…. It hurts…. So hot…..” Curly: “We’re gonna get crushed!” Voice from above: “Hiyah!” Balrog: “There you are! Just like Misery said.” Curly: “You came to rescue us!” Balrog: “Hold on tight!! Let’s go!” -Escape successful and the screen fades to black.- Curly: “Is your head alright” Balrog: “I’m not sure…” “Phew! That…was close!” Curly: “I thought I was scrap metal this time for sure… Looks like we owe you another one.” Balrog: “Nah, don’t thank me. I was just doing what Misery asked me to do.” Curly: “Misery? You mean that witch?” Balrog: “That’s right.” Curly: “I thought she hated our guts. Heck I thought YOU hated our guts.” Balrog: “You beat Ballos, right?” “When you did that, it lifted our curse. Now neither of us have to take orders from anyone.” Curly: “I thought you guys were just jerks, but I guess it was all the Crown’s fault.” Balrog: “Well, you reap what you sow. After all, Misery’s the one who had him make the Crown in the first place.” Curly: “Huh. You don’t say.” Balrog: “I do say. So!” Curly: “So?” Balrog: “So what are you going to do now? I can take you anywhere you like.” Curly: “Hmm, you’re right… Our mission is over, and now I just want to live out my days somewhere where I can relax and enjoy a beautiful view…” Balrog: “Uh, you know…” Curly: “Hm?” Balrog: “…Would it be alright if I joined you there?” Curly: “Sure! Let’s live the three of us together!” Balrog: “Really?!” Curly: “I’ll let you pick the spot. Just find us a good place, okay?” Balrog: “You got it!!” “Alright then, hang on tight!!!” FIN