The Absolute Worst Kirby Final Boss

[Music] thank you it was late one night in early 2007 you just got into the end of the new Kirby game you got for Christmas and thanks for ramping up fast after braving the onslaught of dark de roach all that's left is the one behind it all dark nebula and wait was that it it barely took any hits from the Triple Star surely that was just another fake out and there's an even stronger phase right well there's the credit so it doesn't seem like it if you've ever beaten Kirby Squeak Squad it's pretty likely that you've experienced some form of that scenario it's a fight that ever since the game came out has become a notorious stain on the game as one of the most anticlimactic finales in the series the question is what exactly is it that makes dark nebula the absolute worst final boss in Kirby you might lay blame on the Triple Star but in truth it's only an accomplice to the veritable slew of poor game design choices that make up a dark nebula now to be able to fully illustrate how flawed of a fight a dark nebula is especially as a final boss I should first show what a good Kirby boss looks like in comparison and in an effort to be as Fair as possible I'll limit myself to just Kirby Squeak Squad appearing right before dark nebula and created by the same devs dark the roach is a fine example of a solid fight to me I feel there's two core factors that are a must for late game bosses like these providing a suitable Challenge and allowing the player to use said challenge to their advantage as later game fights are meant to test what the player has learned throughout playing the fight should absolutely be challenging here dark the roach achieves this and then some through a barrage of fast-paced attacks if it's your first time playing or even if you know the fight and don't stay on your toes he'll chip away at your health before you know it the way dark the road abates you into going for the bombs only to be hit by stars from The Triple Star is just one example of how the fight deceives you not to mention he moves all over the place throughout the fight to further put the player on edge although the fight doesn't remain that way forever which leads me to his weakness once you understand the attack patterns and mechanics of a fight being able to counter them or even use them to your advantage by exploiting them is integral for any late game fight after all what better reward is there for learning how to take down a boss than being able to demolish it by exploiting what you learned in dark de roaches case learning that you can swallow up all the stars the second they're shot out was really satisfying of course you can totally annihilate this fight with the right abilities but as with many other Kirby fights it's very important to make it fun and no matter whether your using abilities or not it's that wide variety of play styles that make Kirby games what they are half the time so seeing that the devs obviously knew how to make a decent enough fight it makes it all the more perplexing white dark nebula is as much of a joke as it is leading up to the fight they actually did a pretty solid job of establishing the tension and atmosphere needed for a final boss that little segment where Kirby chases dark nebula as it's beginning to form was really cool the variation of the final boss theme that plays during it enhances things by a lot I'd honestly say that little part was more memorable to me than the actual fight itself because one dark nebula finally forms it won't be around for long as quite a few Kirby games like to do for the final showdown with dark nebula Kirby gets a special ability called Triple Star basically it's the weapon deroach had before and functions like a stronger version of the Star Rod from Kirby's Adventure though unlike how you could only sometimes hit nightmare with a Star Rod dark nebula is always vulnerable and no matter what sure it occasionally does things resembling dodging but if you just keep attacking the fight ends pretty fast so off the bat it's clear the Triple Star was definitely not utilized as well as it could have been usually when Kirby games hand you an overpowered weapon like this it's meant to complement the mechanics of the final fight hell take dark mind from Kirby and the Amazing Mirror a game that was developed by the same Dev team that work on Squeak Squad the Galaxia you get at the end of that game only enhances a showdown with dark mind with it mostly being a beefed up sword ability the massive slashes you do are super satisfying of when paired with dark minds mechanics of only being vulnerable when its eye is open now what does dark nebula do to avoid your attacks or develop strategy well I guess it goes to the top of the screen sometimes this makes the Triple Star end up as less of a good final weapon and more of a way for the devs to sweep dark nebula under the rug before you spend too much time on it because when you fight dark nebula without an ability only then does it become apparent how lazily slapped together this fight is fitting in with one of squeak squad's new mechanics of adding Elemental variants to some abilities dark nebula shifts between three main elements while you fight it and depending on the element it's on and not only do its attacks change but so do its movement patterns on paper this is a pretty neat concept for a fight it's a shame that when it came time to make the fight many upset attacks and movements would end up lackluster in its fire form the special attack us a ball of fire that coats the ground in flame it's a cool idea for an attack that's not necessarily alien to Kirby games the problem is with the attack being overly telegraphed by the ball of fire slowly reaching the ground the only way it'll ever hit you is if you decide to stand right next to it for some reason then in the electric form this unique attack is kind of cool until you realize you can completely avoid it by hugging the wall honestly if they'd have just made this one reach the edges of the screen to force you to float inside the shocks it'd actually be a fitting attack for a Kirby final boss lastly with the third and final form the ice form actually has the one mechanic of this fight that I'll praise though it's not the unique attack with it consisting of dark nebula slowly moving across the screen as it fires a beam of ice this is another one that you can once again completely avoid by standing still in fact this attack in particular is probably the most annoying of all you see while you probably wouldn't see this much if you demolished it with a Triple Star dark nebula has a tendency to repeat attacks back to back normally this wouldn't be so bad as bosses don't tend to take forever to complete a single attack that is most bosses that aren't dark nebula since it'll just continue to throw out the same patterns over and over expecting a different outcome with the ice beam taking so long I found myself getting bored while they continue to do the same slow attack over and over not to mention it leaves Zeiss physics behind everyone's favorite however this does lead me to the one thing I'll semi-praise almost as if this fight is taking advantage of putting you to sleep a dark nebula will often go from doing the Ice Beam to the ice movement pattern and that's just moving in a circle across the screen and since the beam pushes you into a corner sometimes it leaves you wide open to be rammed by dark nebula low when it suddenly moves down sure you can easily avoid this by just dashing to the other side of the second it finishes shooting the beam but this does qualify as some strategy built into the fight it's really just about the only strategy there is as for the other two movement patterns they're pretty Bare Bones in the electric form a dark nebula slowly moves up and down across the screen like its other attacks if it just didn't go on for so long and sometimes repeated over and over it could have worked as a nice opening to attack instead it's like dark nebula is taping a kick me node on its back and in the fire form it almost looks like they realized their mistakes by making the movement pattern more akin to dark to Roach only that unlike a dark the roach just staying on the ground more than suffices for avoiding this pattern though throughout all of this how do you manage to get projectiles in this fight well taking a bit more than just a page out of nightmare's book dark nebula also shoots star-shaped projectiles and unlike most Kirby bosses out there these are the only objects you can inhale in the entire fight with the various patterns that dark nebula shoots these out in and not being locked to specific forms they're the only other part of this fight that wasn't entirely poorly designed because while pretty much all the other attacks are incredibly underwhelming these can sometimes catch you off guard although good luck actually spitting these back out at dark nebula after the fact one thing that I never really noticed about this fight until I did it without the Triple Star is more often than not dark nebula is at the top of the screen meaning a lot of the time once you're able to suck up a Star the game refuses to give you an opening instead opting to have dark nebula enter yet another cycle of sluggish attacks again this wouldn't be so bad if the fight was actually engaged and made it so that you have to dodge a lot to earn that opening but more often than not you're just kind of standing there waiting for dark nebula to finish its third Ice Beam in a row going back to Dr Roach that fight actually does exactly this excellently a lot of the time when you suck up a projectile in that fight you're not immediately able to attack due to dark the roach erratically moving around so along with keeping track of the roach keeping you engaged it makes it all the more satisfying a one you manage to land ahead amidst the chaos with dark nebula it's less of that and more like you're waiting for a delayed bus you know it'll arrive eventually and take you where you want to go but at this point you're getting sick of waiting and just want to get it over with you know the exact atmosphere you want to create for your games finale no wonder they made the triple Stars so powerful I doubt the doves even enjoyed this fight the saddest part is that with a few tweaks to both the attacks and patterns of dark nebula it could very well have been a worthy final boss for Squeak Squad it doesn't have to be that much more difficult either as has been shown by plenty of Kirby Final Bosses up until this point their main strengths aren't hitting you with a massive difficulty Spike that pummels you into the ground their main strengths are presenting you with a unique challenge unlike anything you've seen thus far so when faced with that you can then put the skills you've built up throughout the game to the test whether that be through a finale gimmick or just more complex attacks they're the backbone of every Kirby finale in turn when it comes to dark nebula a few small changes here and there would make a big difference of course speeding up or flat out shortening some attacks would help a lot but what dark nebula really needs is some more solid strategy take the Triple Star for instance instead of it being a basic op weapon that shoots out three stars maybe they could give it the ability to change tax depending on dark nebula's elements Not only would that fit in will squeak squad's gameplay additions to the Kirby formula it also give the opportunity for the player to use what they learned against the final boss hell they could even make it where if you take on one of dark nebula's elements and use it against another one of its forms it deal more or less damage depending on the element being used on the form to be fair that may be a bit much for this fight but my point is there's many ways this fight could have been enhanced without too much extra effort the foundations are absolutely there they just never built much on top of that and served it up as a finished product seeing how the devs clearly knew how to make a good fight it honestly leads me to believe that Squeak Squad ended up rushed towards the end of its development it's a real shame because Squeak Squad is a decent game too it's just that when it comes down to it the game really didn't stick the landing and neither would Flagship Kirby Squeak Squad at being the last game they'd work gone for Nintendo or anyone before ceasing to exist after being absorbed by Capcom so there you have it that's every reason and then some why dark nebula is unequivocally the worst Kirby final boss hey let me know how you all liked this smaller more focused video this year I'm gonna try to experiment more with what I put out on the channel so if you liked this one tell me in the comments and I'll be sure to make more like it feel free to recommend other boss fights you think deserve videos like this though above all else I'd like to thank my patrons on patreon if you want to support what I do and get some bonus content like early cuts of videos before they release and behind the scenes videos do consider stopping by at patreon.com the RPG monger by the way sorry if my voice sounded slightly off in this video as you all probably know at this point I've been recovering from double jaw surgery these past few months and while I'm nearly completely recovered the remaining numbness in my bottom lip messes with my speech a bit but don't worry I'm doing fine thankfully it and what little swelling is left in my face will continue to subside over the next few months so that being said I'm the RPG monger and don't forget that each and every one of you are fantastic [Music] foreign

Channel: The Rpg Monger

Views: 59,480

Keywords: Kirby Squeak Squad, Dark Nebula, Daroach, Dark Daroach, Kirby, Analysis, Critique, final boss, Review, The Rpg Monger, rpgmonger

Id: nBB2FubXDIo

Length: 14min 9sec (849 seconds)

Published: Sat May 06 2023