I’m on a kick right now of returning to some of the most
iconic, innovative, and thrilling boss fights on Youtube from all gaming. Kid Icarus, long absent from the gaming
sphere, brings his own cast of villains to rank in. Does the rogues gallery have what it takes to
stack up in modern games?
Twin Bellows (land)
– this iconic two headed dog is a beast for power, but well timed dodges puts a
swift end to him (them?). The
pyrotechnic coat looks impressive, but for a monster whose main attack is
charging and crashing, he lacks staying power.
Dark Lord Gaol (land)
– yes you are reading right. Kid Icarus
defeats the dark lord in only the second level.
This heavily armored warrior dashes about the arena, with Magnus, your
NPC ally, in hot pursuit. He’ll throw a
few surprises your way, but it takes a special kind of failure to be finished
by the Dark Lord.
Hewdraw (both air
and land) – This three headed dragon can become a challenge without a
plan. While flying in the air the three
heads will take turns charging up attacks.
These attacks can hurt, but can easily be stopped. As each head takes lethal damage, it will be
cut away, leaving you to finish off the last head and kill the original body of
the Hewdraw. Trouble is, the other two
heads are still alive! Descending to the
ground, Pit must track the Hewdraw heads as they attack a local town, fighting
off the army. The first head will do
little more than snap and charge at Pit, dangerous but not too hard to
dodge. The final Hewdraw head has
successfully regrown it’s body, and when cornered by Pit will hide underwater,
rearing and snapping to attack, or otherwise charging up painful energy
attacks. It takes fair dodging skills to
avoid the homing attacks he launches (are those scales, or claws, or
what?). Shoot the glowing energy spheres
to drop them into the water, exposing the last Hewdraw and giving you a chance
to pummel him.
This boss is not hard to fight, as it is stretched out over
the entire level, and Palutena’s continuous dialog helps keep you on
target.
Great Reaper (land)
– The large amount of hit points that the normal size Reapers possess should
warn you about the kind of battle you are in for here. Great Reaper focuses on powerful laser blasts
from his Eye, and deadly use of his battle scythe. There are two levels to this room, and
knowing when and how to move quickly from top to bottom and back again saves you a lot of
aggravation. Stay moving left and right
two, as this keeps you from his Eye blast.
Attacking his feet serves as a weak point, but be warned, he is very
quick to stomp. After a lot of injury to
his head, victory can be yours.
I’ll remember the Great Reaper for a while, as I certainly
have unhappy memories of the Reapers of old.
Careful observation, not panicked continuous attacks, leads to victory.
Pandora (land) – Essentially a shadow with a face,
Pandora runs and dodges about the room, challenging you to keep up. She will keep up the pressure with ranged and
energy attacks. Her true danger was
always in her illusions, though, and it was surprising how easily she seemed to
give up the mirror. The following cut
scene creates Dark Pit, who immediately betrays Pandora and assists you to kill
her. His welcome distraction makes it
very easy for you to land the killing blow on Pandora.
Pandora is almost too easy.
On top of it all, Dark Pit makes it even easier to kill her. This is too bad, as her level guarding the
path to her is top notch and very memorable.
Dark Pit (Pittoo, but
only if you want to eat your socks) – Once again, Dark Pit drags out the
battle across the entire stage. Pit
takes to the skies to hunt him and is almost immediately struck by Dark Pit’s
fire, which I still can’t tell if he was shooting at me or just attacking
random monsters near where I would be… That’s
pretty much how this battle goes, with Pit pursuing Dark Pit as they both fight
off waves of underworld monsters until Pit does enough damage to Dark Pit to
chase him to the next stage. The
showdown on top of the town has some clever banter, and hints that Dark Pit is
some sort of creation of Pit’s deep fears, made real by the mirror of
course.
This battle is nothing special, except for that witty
banter. Pit and Dark Pit trade blows
until one falls, but it’s the barbs and insults they hurl, more than the blows,
that makes this battle feel like character growth. Dark Pit’s steadily changing arsenal also
helps keep the battle lively. The difficulty is fair, but nothing challenging.
Thanatos (land) –
this boss may be the most standout of all battles, despite all the wrong
reasons. Thanatos’ voice actor conjures
Disney clowns to mind, while the writing is trite, and several times focuses on
Thanatos’ evasion of questions about his involvement with Medusa. He has numerous stages to his battle, and
changes them when one is no longer effective.
The first stage involves fighting trading shot over range, shape
shifting into a giant foot or other attacks.
When he tires of that, he announces that he’s going to take a snooze in
his jar, which is completely impervious to direct attack. Only by meleeing the skulls he launches can
Pit break the jar, an overtired tactic for Nintendo to be sure, but hard to do
in a range heavy game like Kid Icarus. The
final phase sees him change into a Russian doll, no challenge too difficult to
fight since the real one is hiding in the smallest doll.
Thanatos is a weird boss, and can prove challenging due to
his unconventional defenses.
Space Kraken
(land) – this boss may be the oldest retread, as I felt it was just as recently
as Skyward Sword that the Kraken had been seen before. This overgrown tentacle Deku Scrub requires Pit
to shoot his five tentacles to reveal the head, then shoot the schnoze. The tentacles take fair damage and do as much
again to Pit. The final phase involves
him spiting lasers, which can be very difficult to avoid. The head also takes a lot of damage.
This boss suffers more from the act he’s following: Tentalus
the fifth level boss of Skyward Sword
looked goofy until you realized each of those silly locks was actually a razor
toothed snake head. Tentalus was also
harder to hit, perhaps due to his own movements, but more likely from the
rocking of the deck where Link fought him.
Neither speaks well of Pit, who can take his time lining up powerful
shots and make them count, without an ammo limit! Space Kraken should probably be left
calamaried! Seriously, that’s all we
have to remember him by!
Medusa (air) –
Unique among KIU bosses, Medusa won’t even let Pit enter range to shoot her
without Palutena’s direct intervention.
She’s a titan too, sorry I meant in size category. She will fill the screen with fire to make
Pit’s life difficult, including blocking whole sections of it for long seconds
at a time. Dodging is a tough order for
Pit. Continuous fire at range makes this
battle much easier. Medusa changes her
form and fire type several times, but not the underlying strategy. In her second form she will reluctantly allow
Pit near enough to melee. In her third,
her face changes to a Cyclops and her whole head will chase Pit around the
room, raining fire on him.
In my first throwdown with Medusa, I had quite a few “oh
shi-“ moments, but came through without losing a life because of continuous
dodging, sometimes crashing right into her traps, with almost no break in fire,
and by using the Power Attacks (the ones that fill the screen with Pit’s arrows
and kill all enemies/deflect all shots) a couple of times. This is a tough battle, but not impossible.
And just when you
think that’s it over – Pits victory over Medusa is short lived, as Hades,
who looks quite a bit more badass but every bit the wise-ass compared to Disney’s
Hades, puts a violent stop to the rolling credits to announce that he was the
jerk behind all of your enemies. Without
actually telling you why he did all this, he announces that it’s only just
begun. Stay tuned for more.
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