Part 4 of 5.

This is my third favorite final fight in the franchise, behind Copy X from MMZ and Lumine from MMX8. I love the foreboding and frantic atmosphere, and the design on the final form is awesome. On Hard Mode, it's also one of the most difficult. I've left in the scenes involved, as honestly, the transition is just jarring otherwise and the Anime Drama is hilarious, but just click this time link if you want to skip to the second form: 5:48

Serpent: This battle is an absolute nightmare on Hard, arguably worse than the second form. It's lunacy, because on Normal he's not just easy, he's a pushover. However, he'd had one attack which allowed him to overdrive just like you can. During this, his speed would just be psychotic. Fortunately, it didn't last at all. On Hard Mode, he goes at that speed constantly. No remorse. This means that previously well-telegraphed attacks now come fast and in literally any order.

Serpent's AI has no disposition on any attack and can and will chain them in the worst ways. Since both variations of his spread shot require specific locations to dodge, almost in advance, and given that he's all over the arena, you begin to realize why the bastard is so threatening. I lost so many attempts to just that attack.

His other attacks are honestly no better. He can uppercut and dash much like Copy X in the original Zero, except must faster on the draw. With so much variation in how you need to dodge all four of these attacks, you need to be on constant alert at all times to not get blindsided. He also fires a Japanland-style oversized energy shot that is fun to play with an a nice breather in between his usual onslaught.

Past the halfway point the battle becomes beyond ridiculous and is one of the few battles I've recorded where you can tell I'm jumpy and on my feet as opposed to toying with things. Serpent starts things off by overdriving, and his speed of attack is such that you honestly need a bit of luck not to get trapped in an unavoidable situation. When that wears off, his AI changes to more actively chain attacks effectively, and no, that doesn't make things more predictable. He also gains his worst attack, which is a feint from above. On alert, it's not hard to see coming and dodge, but to do so, you need to leave him out of sight, which is way too dangerous by this point, as when you dash back, you have no idea what attack he's entered next until it's halfway through happening. See, this is how you make a final boss.

Serpent/Model W: While probably easier than Serpent, the final form still hard as shit by any standards. He follows final form tradition by having many elaborate attacks with equally elaborate dodge paths. His first trick is the meteors. This is obviously telegraphed to hell, but still a serious pain as those homing flames are devious and require some timing to dispatch in the narrow gap you're given. His next attack is another attempt killer on Hard. Two crystals he smashes into dozens of shards, each of which hurts you. Now you dodge this the same way each time, but the point is he can smash them in either order, and the time you're left to react to it is worryingly small. He fires those kooky green projectiles that will hit you from time to time when you dispatch them just to be dicks.

His second phase introduces the attack that makes the fight. After he summons the black hole, he starts raining down black particles in absolutely arbitrary order, all over the field. One or two hits by this and you might as well just jump into him, as you'll be moving so sluggishly you're going to get hit by whatever attack he uses next. Period. It's bad here and five times worse in the third phase. He also has a bit of a throwaway variation on Pandora's electric snakes (if you couldn't tell, this guy is more or less an amalgamation of biometals) that's not too hard to dodge but can still catch you if you hesitate.

The third form is just a nightmare, again, due to that ONE attack. Now that his claws essentially cut your room in half, you're left with almost no space to maneuver between particles, and the utterly random order in which they are sent down means you actually can get unlucky after making it this far and just get trapped unavoidably. His new variation on the crystals in actually a good deal easier and mainly serves to punish you after planting into some of those black particles.

His final trick is another annoyingly specific one in which he sends out telegraphed patterns of projectiles from basically all directions. At this point in the battle your heart is racing and it's very easy to lose your cool and faceplant into one of them. All things told, this is easily one of the most dangerous final bosses conceived for the franchise and is beyond painful to do damageless.

So basically I love the shit out of it.

Tracks used, in order:

Infected Mushroom - Becoming Insane
Cyber Baphomet - Flight of UFO

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