I was recording a video series on this game, and trying to get a recording of me avoiding one of Boss 11's attacks led to me stalling said boss for OVER 15 MINUTES. Needless to say, I'm a lot better at fighting the later bosses now.
Still can't beat Boss Endurance 2 though, the True Final Boss is BRUTAL. I'll snatch that win one day...
still havent finished my lengthy comment, and that's probably a good thing since the patch im playing on is so broken lmao (i kid you not i beat one of the bosses in 18 seconds with pre-overhaul roboburt)
edit: wow pre patch robo burt is BROKEN im so mad i did all the bosses before [boss that grants you robo-burt when defeated] legit and died so much lmao
(yes im gonna download the patch later, but first im gonna have some fun with cracked roboburt)
Trust me, Fatty Whale used to be much worse. In the first versions of WK, he had way too much health, resulting in the Time Attack requirements for HDAPI being basically impossible.
The only thing about Fatty Whale's three attacks which changes is whether his waterspouts during the roll attack are pink or not. Thus, you can learn the exact positioning to avoid each attack (e.g. for the backflip attack, I used to always stay in the middle and parry the middle spout which is guaranteed to be pink, but I later found a spot between FW and the left/rightmost spout's extended hitboxes which was much more safe)
I BEAT THE TRUE TRUE FINAL BOSS YEEEEEEAAAAAASSSSS
https://youtu.be/lVNHD4RiXBM (captions coming soon)
tldr, got some absurdly lucky HNs which allowed me to survive longer
Really fun Kirby fangame, I thoroughly enjoyed it, though re-learning Hollow Knight's controls (I use the keyboard default) after being used to this game's controls is going to be tricky lol.
edit: now i have >30 videos of me dying to said boss, idk what to do with them lol
edit 2: Is there a sort of "Theater" feature in this game for viewing cutscenes? I kinda forgot about what the earlier cutscenes said :P
edit 3: ill just dump all the unlisted footage of me dying to stuff in a random playlist that ppl can seek out if they wish to ig
This is my closest attempt to defeating the menace (unlisted because the boss is practically a Walking Spoiler) that I have recorded.
Alas, the road is long...
my first victory against him took over 10 minutes. Though, to be fair, the time limits are supposed to be tough to achieve.
aaaaahhhhhh got an attempt where the music got to chiptune green greens and boss hp was about 10-ish%, sadly it wasn't recorded tho :(
If I managed to survive one more H.N., I might've beaten [THEM].
[THEY] are probably the most difficult boss I've seen in a Kirby fangame/mod, trumping even RoDL's Crowned Magolor or PEKSCTG2's final boss
Anyways, I've about quarter of the way finished with captions for the footage where i first met [THEM] (and died soon after, unsuprisingly). Thank goodness you can practise the fight outside the Arena! I'll probably consider the game conquered when I beat [THEM] outside the Arena, as there's no way I'm going to survive having to fight this menace after 15 bosses lol. I would make a joke about expecting to unlock DDark after beating them, but honestly the real reward will be satisfaction.
Don't expect much updates soon, as I probably need a bit of rest before attempting to beat the fabled Child of the Stars...
So far, how well a run goes seems to be dependent on how well I dodge H.N. If I do it badly, that's like 3/4/5 HP down the drain, but if I do it well, I might even heal 1 HP (before quickly losing it again lol). I'm now decently consistent at their attacks (except Ice and H.N.), so all that's left is the execution.
Edit: spent over 25 attempts on the boss, i definitely need rest lol
YEEEEEEEES I BEAT THE SECRET BOSS
time for arena again (oh no...)
EDIT: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
(I won't spoil what it is, but... it's something...)
EDIT 2:
Managed to get [REDACTED]'s HP to around 50%, getting there
EDIT 3:
gotta love how ninja was completely unchanged lol
Anyways, H.N. is by far the hardest attack to dodge. Dunno if I'm even going to beat this menace outside the Arena...
EDIT 4:
got [THEM] down to about 30% hp before dying...
can't even parry the falling rocks in the H.N. attack, this is one hellish boss...
thanks for the boss 11 hp bug fix :D
here's my best attempt at The Arena (died to Boss 11):
https://youtu.be/cZColB8rMCo
(vid link may not work because it's still uploading)
ive also noticed that the "ESC to die" function works now yay
(in the footage, i dont have the boss 11 silver medal, but i got it after i recorded the footage)
(i dont have the 5th kirby quest medal because the final boss lol - also i think the pre-final-boss of KQ5 doesn't deal any damage to your Burts when it attacks?)
[SECOND EDIT: I have unlocked The Arena - turns out, the reason I didn't unlock it was because the cutscene progression seems to be botched due to me skipping Boss 11 - after I beat Boss 11 (I face-tanked the "overwhelming" phase - didn't have any idea how I would dodge it otherwise) then Boss 12 (after a few tries, due to that damn Hypernova having the ability to OHKO, and also because I was going for Silver Medal, and that timer for Silver Medal is nasty), The Arena unlocked]
Thanks to the timer increase, I managed to gain the Silver Medal from Boss 9 after a few tries, with less than 10 seconds on the clock. I also managed to get Silver Medal for Boss 10 after a few tries, with a mere 5 seconds left on the timer :)
[EDIT: I just beat Boss 11, still not a fan of the "overwhelming" phase at the end - no Arena unlocked, though, so I assume that it is locked behind medals?]
I don't have The Arena unlocked, which I presume is either because I don't have Bronze Medal for Boss 11 (never managed to beat it, sadly - I usually get done in by the second form even before the "overwhelming" phase), or I don't have enough medals
(I have 35 medals:
- 11 bronze for beating all the bosses except Boss 11
- 10 silver for beating the first 10 bosses on Timer Battle
- 6 gold for beat bosses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 on Danger Battle
- 4 Pix medals for beating Boss 5's minibosses separately
- 4 blue medals for beating Mini-Game Quests 1-4)
[EDIT: I now have 36 medals due to having beaten Boss 11]
I just noticed that Boss 6 (specifically the Danger Battle version) slowly regenerates its HP, which I suppose is a measure to force the player to fight him honorably instead of coward-ing by occasionally firing Bronto Burt shots from the distance - that's a creative solution, I kind of like it(?)
For the "some attacks are harder than others, so the boss is a bit RNG" problem, I've had a bit of thought about it. I think I've noticed what you mentioned about Boss 10 and Boss 11's second form having that "weak attacks -> strong attack" pattern, and funnily enough, I think that HAL also reached a similar solution to that with the Knight bosses in the later games (since those are also somewhat random). Looking at WiKirby's page on Morpho Knight reveals that its attack pattern follows a 'script' of "do a few random unscripted attacks -> big scary scripted attack".
Btw, is it intentional that upon entering Boss 11's second form, the player's HP drops to 5 or 6?
[SECOND EDIT: The timer for Boss 12 is rougher than one might initially think, due to certain attacks which can't or are difficult to punish, such as Hypernova - in order to get Silver Medal, I had to face-tank a few attacks towards the end to keep consistent damage, which paid off since I got Silver with about 30 timer seconds remaining. Onto the Arena! I'm looking forward to this, since I'm an absolute sucker for Boss Rushes]
After re-fighting Boss 10, he was more fun than I gave him credit for - I like that his shockwave attacks leave him vulnerable to being punished. I won't use the "like a dance" comparison that people usually like to use with Hollow Knight bosses, but there is a sort-of rhythm to the boss where there are certain opportunities to punish him. It also helps that his arena is smaller.
Note: Keep in mind that my opinion is heavily swayed by having to fight bosses 1-10 and 12 (through some sort of bug in the Boss Door Warp, I was able to fight boss 12 after beating boss 10) in update 1.0.0, before the various nerfs, changes and Easy Mode (bless Easy Mode, it's a life-saver)
This is a very cool fangame that deserves way more attention, I like it very much! The bosses are challenging, but are very much learnable (with an exception of a few attacks), though I think 5 HP is a bit too punishing especially given how healing is much more difficult to perform here compared to games like Hollow Knight. Probably one of my favorite Kirby fangames.
The platforming sections showcase the new abilities Bandana Dee gets pretty well, which I like, and the gimmicks are pretty cool too. The platforming sections do get rather tricky and I got a bit frustrated in a few places, especially the final gauntlet where during an indoor section where Bandee was being shot by red cannons and has to do some tricky dashes and walljumps, getting hit in certain places would result in Bandee being invisible (I think shade-dashing fixed the invisibility? Not sure, don't remember much about it, and it has probably been fixed). Now onto my thoughts on each on each boss:
Boss 1 is surprisingly difficult for being the first boss, especially given how strong its wind is (I think that the player should at least be able to slightly outrun the wind - if you're too close to it, it will inhale you towards itself, which is basically guaranteed damage), given how one doesn't have dash yet. I like that in Phase 2, it forces the player to parry the apple to reach it, though that gimmick may be a bit advanced for the first boss of the game.
Easily its most difficult attack (apart from the inwards inhale) is one of its Phase 2 air bullet patterns, where it fires in this pattern:
[up up up, down middle, down parry, down middle, down, down down parry down down]
It's not very clear that one is supposed to duck with the first three air bullets, and the "down middle, down" combo has a very narrow leeway for the player to squeeze between the gaps.
Boss 2 is probably my favorite of the lot. All of its attacks have a fair telegraph, and its pretty clear how to dodge them. The last-ditch phase is cool and flows well too. I've also noticed that Boss 2, Boss 3 and Boss 4 are able to be staggered - how do boss staggers work in this game, and which bosses are able to be staggered?
Boss 3 is pretty cool, if not a bit rough due to the Gordos that can spawn in Phae 2. I like how his single hammer, triple hammer and hammer jump have similar telegraphs, but have slight differences that can be spotted. It's worth noting that he makes you have to use your dash pretty frequently, which I like since the player just got dash, so the following boss should test the player's skill with dashing.
Boss 4 is still fun, though a bit annoying, due to its ground dash. Not the actual ground dash itself, but rather Kracko gliding to one corner of the screen to perform that dash. It can and will catch the player off-guard in some annoying ways, and a diagonally-moving Boss 4 is not easy to avoid. The triple lightning sparks in Phase 2 are also a bit tricky to avoid, though that attack is much more fair. I like that the boss tests one's wall jump skills in Phase 2, and most of its attacks are pretty fun to avoid.
Boss 5 is a major difficult spike compared to previous bosses, having the audacity to have 8 entire phases, each with its devious quirks. (Phase 6 and Phase 8 also used to last a millenium, but thankfully their HP has been nerfed, making Silver Medal an actually reasonable thing to go for) Phase 1, 3, 5 and 7 are nice cooldown phases, not much to say about them. Phase 2 highlights one of the biggests flaws of the bosses in this game, in my opinion. The flaw is that bosses tend to have one attack which is much more difficult that all its other attacks, making the boss feel a bit like RNG sometimes. That attack, in Phase 2, is the attack where the hologram ice-skates, spawning ice cubes everywhere. The player has to quickly notice the telegraph and scramble to the nearest wall to wall jump until the attack is over. Phase 4 is pretty fun, I like it. Not sure how I feel about the spawn position of the healing cherries being a bit inconsistent, though.
(Note that I have Silver and Gold Medals for Bosses 1-5. I also have Silver Medals for Boss 7 and Boss 8, and just barely got Silver Medal for Boss 6 - the timer is ridiculously cruel for Boss 6.)
Boss 6 is a bit ridiculous. Unlike in most Kirby games, in this game he is able to run into the player instead of trying to maintain a certain distance with the player. I'm a bit confused as to how the Mach Tornado works - what determines when he will change directions? It often caught me off-guard, and because of that I didn't really try to bother getting Gold Medal. The boss kind-of incentivizes the player to coward out Phase 1 and Phase 3 when he is grounded by occasionally firing Bronto Burt shots and avoiding direct combat, due to his attacks being more difficult to react to when close, which makes the fight drag out a bit.
At first I wasn't a fan of Boss 7, but now I kind of like it. The "twin boss" structure of Phase 1 forces the players to keep track of both of them (though its more beneficial to defeat the grounded one first, as their attacks are more annoying to deal with). However, there are some situations where there doesn't seem to be a way to dodge a particularly nasty combination (e.g. the aerial one doing the downwards laser while the grounded one does the rolling), which is a bit unfortunate, and incentivizes trying out Silver and Gold Medal after one has acquired the shade-dash. Phase 2 is pretty good when one finds out that the boss is vulnerable to Bronto Burt. There is one really problematic attack, though - that being the black hole. It stays onscreen for a long time, and the suction power is far too powerful to be able to fairly deal with the boss' other attacks. The other attacks are fine, though, and actually very fun to avoid.
Boss 8 is absolute hell, having 4 phases, each with its unique take on the red dots, blue platformer-shocker, yellow laser and green spread-shot, and having to keep track of pillars that occasionally appear (and can screw you up if the blue electricity lands on an inconvenient platform). It was fun to learn the boss, but very exhausting - easily one of the most difficult bosses in the entire game. I don't have much problems with Phase 1, there are no overtly unfair attacks unless a pillar and the blue attack happen to coincide in a bad place. Phase 2 is actually pretty fun, I like pogoing on the boss and it doesn't coincide with the pillars in a nasty wat. It would be the easiest phase, if not for the red attack. Phase 3 is not too bad - the yellow attack is really easy, the red attack is a bit challenging but manageable, and the blue attack can sometimes straight-up miss a platform (it would be cool if one could position oneself to trick the boss into missing a platform instead of it happening sometimes when lucky). The real demon here is the green attack, which due to the wideness of the spread-shot, is nigh-undodgeable most of the time. Phase 4 is probably the most "I-could-do-well-or-do-very-badly" phase of them all. The red, blue and green attacks are fine, but the yellow attack can sometimes be undodgeable if the boss decides it to do it in certain places. It's a fun boss, but extremely difficult, even with improved movement options.
Boss 9 is... weirdly easy for being so late in the game (especially compared to the absolute hell that was Boss 8)? None of his attacks are too difficult, even in Phase 2, and he gives plenty of time to recover the Holo-shield-thing-that-I-forgot-the-name-of. (Fitting, really, since in his debut game, he also felt somewhat easy compared to some other bosses in that game) For reference, Boss 8 took several days and countless attempts of pain and suffering, and Boss 9 only took 2 attempts to beat (the first attempt I died to the black hole which, for some reason, OHKOs the player). Boss 9 is the first boss where I do not have the Silver Medal - I got very close a few times, but I always ran out of time. The problem is that he is just so random - his teleports are random, and what attack he chooses is random, which is problematic since he has some attacks where he cannot be damaged for a long time. I think that potential fixes to this could be:
a. Give him a fixed attack pattern, much like how he was in his debut game
b. Increase the timer
c. Make him vulnerable to Bronto Burt (this would make sense, since Boss 4 and the second form of Boss 7 are also vulnerable to Bronto Burt, as compensation for them being aerial and difficult to hit)
d. Speed up the boss - this both kind-of fixes the problem of being too easy and makes it less punishing when he chooses to do an attack where he can't be damaged
Boss 10 is Boss 6 but harder. Not much to mention here. He might actually be easier than Boss 6 at that point of the game, due to the player having better movement options by then.
Boss 11 first form is, unsurprisingly, very fun, given that it's a slightly harder rendition of Boss 2, an already-fun boss. I haven't proprely experienced (or beaten) Form 2 (due to the aforementioned Boss Door Warp bug allowing me to skip straight to Boss 12), though it seems rather difficult due to certain telegraphs for different attacks being very similar. I did get to the phase where it spams tons of different attacks all at once, and honestly I'm not sure what to do with that.
I really like Boss 12, its Phase 1 especially reminds me of NKG from Hollow Knight - its attacks look scary but are all very learnable and consistent. Phase 2 isn't too scary either, with the added attacks (with the exception of the Ice attack) not being too difficult and being very learnable and fun. Phase 3 is the true menace, introducing a slew of scary new attacks, most notably Hypernova, which is probably the boss' most difficult attack. The Star Rod attack is a bit scary, though also learnable. It took me ages to learn how to dodge the Ninja attack, and the Beam attack is usually not too bad but depending on how the beam pillars spin, shade-dash has to be used carefully. I really like this boss, it's fun yet very challenging (though I had to use Easy Mode to beat it) - a worthy final boss and a potential contender to take the trophy of "Best Kirby fangame final boss" from Maid-Bot-666 (the final boss of Pik's Epic Kirby Sprite Comics Teh Game 2). My only issues with it are a few bugs relating to the boss - after I collected the bronze coin, the game went completely dark and I had to reset the game (though thankfully, it saved that I beat the boss).
I hope that I don't sound too harsh - I really do like fighting and re-fighting these bosses, that the flaws that I mentioned are only minor flaws. This is a phenomenal fangame and I can see all the effort put into it. I haven't even mentioned the subgames and the Extras! (one funny thing I will mention is that for Quest 5, Whispy's canopy didn't disappear after Whispy was defeated, and stayed there for all the remaining Quest 5 bosses - it was pretty amusing)
I would say my ranking for favorite to least favorite bosses would be:
Boss 2
Boss 12
Boss 7
Boss 5 (post-nerf - pre-nerf would be much further down due to Phase 6)
Boss 8
Boss 3
Boss 1
Boss 4
Boss 10
Boss 6
Boss 9
(can't rank Boss 11 - I haven't fully experienced it)
It has been 87 days since I beat the regular game (437 deaths because I suck) and 45 days since I beat Teh Arina 2 (imo difficulty-wise Mid Boss All-Stars 2 > MaidBot-666)
I hope that my dedication to this game shows how much I like this game
oh dear i have been rambling on for too long sorry
(i didn't bother creating an itch.io account until now, otherwise i would've commented earlier)
