So you finally reached the end of islets. You’ve battled your way through plenty of vicious bosses, hordes of nasty enemies, and five entire islands of traps and platforms. The final challenge before you is, in fact, the last of the Three Great Beasts: GutGhoul.
This fight has a lot going for it: there are more stages and surprises than any other fight in the game (even ClockMaker, if you can believe it), so you’ll need to pay close attention to what’s happening on screen. However, if you keep your wits about you, you should come out unscathed. This is how to beat GutGhoul.
GutGhoul attacks
So here are the GutGhoul attacks on the first part of the fight. The first things to notice are four familiar faces.
| Attack | Description | How to counter |
|---|---|---|
| stone witch idol | The idol from the Stone Witch fight falls to the ground and quickly moves towards you. It will make two passes before returning to the circle of spirits. | This version of the attack isn’t as fast or aggressive as the one you used before – you can easily outrun the idol’s two charges. |
| Buried Beast Swords | The Buried Beast flies off screen and then summons the attack for the second phase of his fight. Two swords appear above you and fly down at an angle, and then two swords appear at your sides and try to skewer you. | As before, you can jump or move to the side to avoid the first part of this attack, but you must jump to avoid the second part or it will sting you. |
| watchmaker’s barrier | The ClockMaker spirit grows, heads to a part of the arena, and creates a large clock. If he touches the clock hands or the outline, he will take damage. | It’s actually quite easy to run off the clock. If you get caught inside, get out of there. |
| grave spirits | The grave spirit grows, heads to a part of the screen, and begins shooting spirit heads in a moving stream. | There’s enough sand to avoid this attack entirely, but dodging is an option if you get caught. |
| Multi-Spirit | Once GutGhoul has used each of these spirits once, he will start using them simultaneously. | You will have to counter the mechanics used by each different spirit at the same time. The ClockMaker is the easiest to keep in mind – just move to the other side of the arena. However, pay special attention to burrowed beast swords: they are the ones you have no chance of avoiding if you ignore them. |
Once you reduce GutGhoul’s health to half, the spirits will disappear and GutGhoul will seem untargetable.. Your ship will fall from the sky: The next part of the boss is a flying section. You will have to deal with multiple mini-bosses before you can attack GutGhoul again.
whenever you see a large group of exclamation marksthat’s the indicator that a new mini-boss is emerging.
| mini-boss | Attack | How to counter |
|---|---|---|
| sky pirate | The Sky Pirate fires waves of fish-shaped projectiles. | Head to the other side of the screen for more room to maneuver. |
| MechaRat | The MechaRat fires single trail versions of its Rat Beams attack. | Just avoid the mines as usual; this time it will be easier to avoid them thanks to your teleportation ability. |
| GrappleBot | The GrappleBot will use its clamp and seal ability constantly. | Thanks to the huge arena and your ability to teleport, this attack is easier than ever to avoid. Just be careful to stay too close in case the clamp cuts you off. |
| defending unit | The Defending Unit will alternate between using Pulsefire and TERMINATE. | Again, thanks to the huge arena, you should have a much easier time dealing with this enemy. You can plan your teleports with a lot more time to spare. |
Once you beat Defender Unit, GutGhoul plays again. We won’t spoil the rest of the fight as it’s basically written from here on out. That’s right, once you beat Defender Unit, you’ve basically completed the game!
How to beat GutGhoul
As the last boss of the game, there are some intricacies in GutGhoul that you will need to understand, most notably the flying section.
- In the first phase, it is really incredibly important mainly watch out for the Buried Beast sword attack – is the only one that tracks you directly and is the most dangerous. It’s not that the others aren’t dangerous, but ignoring it specifically will lead to your downfall.
- when you’re in heaven, remember to never release the fire button. Also, while staying as close to the mini-bosses as possible to get a higher rate of fire, don’t do this for Sky Pirate or GrappleBothis attack patterns will severely punish him for staying close.
- That said, you don’t need to stay close to any of the mini-bosses, they have drastically reduced health bars compared to their full boss forms.
