Boss Guide Version 1.00 Date: 11/2/07 Game: The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night Platform: Gameboy Advance Contact information E-mail: zerophex@hotmail.com MSN: zerophex@hotmail.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of contents -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) Introduction 2) General strategies 3) Boss strategies 4) Updates? 5) End & Credits -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) Introduction -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello and welcome! This is Zerodius, a long-time fan of countless video game series. I've been playing many games and well, I think that personally, I am relatively good at video games. Although I've made many strategies for video games, I never actually posted any of them on any site but well, I think it's a good time to start. Anyway... Spyro 7 (AKA Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night) is a surprisingly good game based on the rebooted Spyro franchise. Although the last few Spyro games have been more or less good, there is no use in denying that A New Beginning and this game especially are actually quite good. One point to note is that while both games are actually quite short arcade-like platformers, The Eternal Night is significantly tougher. In fact, although it is no Devil May Cry material, The Eternal Night is by no mean an easy game and countless topics asking questions on how to defeat bosses in the Wii/PS2 and GBA versions of the games were brought up on many boards. Seeing as there are no guides on how to defeat the bosses of the GBA version, I decided to create this guide. I hope it will help you overcome the bosses! Enjoy! NOTE: Do not be shy to send comments and suggestions about the guide. If you have any alternate strategies on how to defeat some of the game's bosses, then go right ahead and send me your strategies! I'll be sure to include credit for all submitted strategies. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) General strategies -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This apply for all boss fights. First, although it's slightly obvious, always try to arrive with as much health, magic, and fury energy as possible. Most bosses are "announced" by having a small hall with only one or no enemy in them and a bunch of small Spirit Gems. Take the time to break all of them if your health and/or magic meters are low. Always try to arrive with a full Fury meter if possible. Second, know when to and when not to use the Fury mode. The Fury mode will regenerate both your health and magic as well as increase your attack speed by a VERY large margin for as long as the Fury mode lasts. During this time, you have the opportunity to unleash massive damage since you will be able to attack quickly enough to ignore most counter-attacks. Although you might be tempted to use this time to bumrush the boss, it's best not to do so ; although some bosses will be unable to counter-attack, most of them will still be able to land a few counter-attacks thus cancelling the effects of the Fury mode's healing. Third, always be sure to be properly prepared in terms of stats. Don't be afraid and go out of your way to explore the stages fully. Relics and large Spirit Gems are often hidden far from the beaten path. The more relics you will have, the more maximum health and magic you will have. The more Spirit Gems you break, the more spirit energy you will get, allowing you to level-up your breath attacks. As you progress in the game and obtain new skills, be sure to revisit old stages to get the relics and Spirit Gems you couldn't reach before. Although it's possible to beat the game with low stats, it's common sense that the stronger you are, the more chances you'll have of surviving the boss fights. Finally, NEVER try to get into a war of attrition with a boss (except the Ice Spirit)! Spyro is just a small dragon hatchling, Dragon of Prophecy or not, and thus does not have the best endurance around even with a maximum amount of upgrades. On another hand, the bosses are monstrous behemoths that take a whole lot of punishment before going down. Most obviously, if you try to just slug it out, you will almost always lose. No matter how good you are at chaining up combos, strategy will get you through the fights unscathed. The only thing you'll achieve by button mashing is finding out in just how many ways the bosses can do Spyro in. Oh and... don't give up and keep praticing. Some of the bosses, especially on Hard mode, are actually very difficult so don't be discouraged if you don't win the first few times you attempt to fight them. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Boss strategies -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fire Spirit Fought: Stage 1-2 (Fire Temple) Attacks: -Fireball Toss -Firestorm The first boss in the GBA game. The Spirits are DRASTICALLY different from their console versions so do not expect them to be as lame... well, maybe except for this one. Unless you fight him on Hard mode, he should pose absolutely no threat. His strategy consist of floating slowly toward you, stopping once in a while to toss a fireball at you. If you're far, simply dodge it by jumping. If you're close, you can still jump. The only threatening attack is the firestorm, which make fireballs rain from the ceiling at random. However, since he is totally still during this time, it leaves you with the opportunity to open a king-sized can of whoop-ass upon him. This guy is truly not a real challenge. Simply stay away and wait for him to throw a fireball. Then, get close to him and melee him non-stop. As he has no way of breaking out of hit stun, the sole thing preventing you from infinite-ing him to oblivion are the lava pools on the side of the arena. No big deal ; stop attacking when you get near them and get back the opposite edge and wait for him to once again get in range. Repeat 'til he's toast. Earth Spirit Fought: Stage 2-2 (Earth Temple) Attacks: -Low Punch -Crushing Blow This guy is more tedious than difficult. Whenever you win seems to be merely a matter of whenever or not you've been collecting relics whenever you could. With all of them, you should cream this boss. Without an upgraded health meter and a few magic upgrades, this fight will be very difficult. The Earth Spirit has an extremely basic pattern. He walk slowly toward you and then use either his low punch or crushing blow. On Easy and Normal, the attacks do moderate damage but on Hard, they take a big chunk off your health meter... which is a problem as both attacks come off quite quickly. Still, due to his low range, dodging them shouldn't be a problem... as long as you got the space to do so, that is. You see, this boss will continuously walk toward you the whole fight and due to his large size, corner you against a wall and then smack you to oblivion. Although it IS possible to roll through him, his sheer size means that you have to do it from awfully close. The better is to unload everything you got and try to kill him before he can corner you. Just be sure not to combo him too much and to take breathers ; unlike the Fire Spirit, the Earth Spirit CAN break out of hit stun and counter-attack. Naga Fought: Stage 2-3 (Deep Grove) Attacks: -Sword Slash -Strong Slash -Acid Spit -Shield Bash What? No Arborick? Yep, this guy is the big boss instead and he's actually a great deal harder. Naga is the first really difficult boss on this version and is a MAJOR step-up from the two first Elemental Spirit bosses. This huge snake-like thing will start on elevated terrain and slowly move toward you, unleashing Strong Slash and Acid Spit attacks to keep you busy. The Acid Spit fire a single ball of acid toward you with relatively good aim ; be sure to jump AFTER the ball has been fired. The Strong Slash is the most threatening attack ; if it smacks you directly, it will deal major damage and if it strikes air, then it will cause an earthquake that will cause rocks to rain down at random. If that happens, roll repeatedly until the screen stop shaking to dodge all incoming rocks. Now, just like the Earth Spirit, getting cornered is a bad thing... especially that the Naga does a LOT more damage and thus, can finish you off quickly if you allow it to. Now, there's three strategies to beat it. Shield Breaker: Notice what happens if you smack the shield? Those marks are not for show ; Spyro IS damaging the shield as he attacks. Now, your goal here is to break the shield. To do so, run up to Naga whenever he is not winding up for an attack and combo him up. Keep striking even when he's blocking but be sure not to do a longer combo than 4-5 hits ; if you strike Naga too much, he will counter with the Shield Bash attack, knocking you away from him and damaging you in the process. If you can manage to break the shield, get in close and infinite Naga to oblivion. Hit & Run: If you don't want to deal with the Shield Bash counter, you can choose to take advantage of Naga's recovery time after his Sword Slash attack. This strategy works only if you do not let Naga come off the high ledge at the beginning of the fight. Quite simply, duck at the base of the small hill and wait for Naga to use a Sword Slash attack. His sword will get stuck, allowing you to run up to him and combo him up. Do a full combo and then retreat back to the base of the hill ; if you strike him too much, he'll start blocking and if you're using this strategy, it's that you do not want to see the Shield Bash attack ; stop attacking and retreat. If Naga use the Acid Spit or Strong Slash attacks, jump over the former and roll through the latter as usual. Just be sure to stay at the base of the hill, ducking most of the time. Note that you might want to turn off the Slope Slide attack for this fight so Spyro doesn't start sliding rather than ducking in the middle of the fight. Near-Infinite Combo: This is the fastest but most risky tactic. Simply put, if you pull this one off correctly, you can finish off the boss without it doing a single move... but if you screw up, you'll be in a bad shape for the rest of the fight. Quite simply, run up to the boss at the start of the fight and bum-rush him ; do not let him attack at all. When he raise up the shield, stop attacking and wait for him to wind up for an attack. Immediately resume your assault before he can actually pull off his attack and stop when the shield come up again. This strategy require lots of timing but once you can pull it off, you can finish off Naga effortlessly in under two minutes. Overall, Naga is a difficult boss but if you pratice up and use the above strategies (which one is up to you), you should be able to overcome him. Ice Spirit Fought: Stage 3-2 (Ice Temple) Attacks: -Ice Cannons -Low Punch This boss is ridiculously overpowered offensively. From afar, this boss will rapid-fire ice bullets at you from its cannons at a low angle and when it gets in close, it will proceed to pummel you repeatedly with a fast and deadly punch. Dodging the first attack require jumping but due to the rapid-fire rate of fire, it's likely it won't do much good. Likewise, the low punch come a bit too quickly for you to evade it with any kind of consistency. Sadly, this boss is a cheesy, cheap boss. The only reliable way to beat him is to come into the battle with as many health and magic upgrades as possible and an upgraded fire breath, if possible. The strategy is simple: get on one of the platforms and make short hops, trying your best to evade the ice bullets while countering with the fire breath. No matter what you do, you'll almost surely end up taking heavy damage on this one. Don't feel ashamed if you get hopelessly stuck on this one and needs to reload in order to seek out more upgrades and/or experience for the fire breath. You wouldn't be the first one... especially on Hard mode. Advisor (1) Fought: Stage 3-1 (Airship Fellmuth) Attacks: -3 Hits Combo -Shuriken Throw -Multi Air Shuriken -Dummy Teleport Counter -Air Slash Teleport Counter Yep, none of the console version's bosses await you at Fellmuth's arena for you to fight... but instead, you'll get THIS guy who is, in my opinion, infinitely cooler. Yes, it's a Dark Grunt in a ninja outfit. No, it's not for show ; this guy is tough as nails and will hand you out your tail on the first few fights. On this first fight, the Advisor will fight in a relatively defensive style. He'll mostly run and jump around randomly, not actively trying to hurt you. However, if you do happen to be in the way when he's running around, he WILL combo you up. His combos hurts, a LOT, so don't ever get close to him if you're not sure you will be the one to strike first. The Advisor does sport a few fancy moves such two different counters but he'll seldom use them and the Dummy Counter will be easy to see coming ; if the boss disappear in a puff of smoke and leave a dummy behind, do NOT touch the dummy as it will explode upon impact. If you are near him when he jumps, he'll throw an arc of three shurikens at you and once in a while, he'll do a slow high jump before unleashing them. In both cases, you can either roll or position yourself in-between two shurikens to avoid damage. There's not much to do against the Air Slash Teleport Counter ; roll out of the way to avoid the incoming attack. Oh and by the way, yes, it's quite cheap when he just randomly pull those shurikens out of nowhere while he's walking and pelt you with them. Learn to jump/roll in time and bear with it. Note that if you have magic to spare, you can counter the shurikens with breath attacks ; your projectiles and the boss's will destroy each others. It sounds like a good idea on paper but it truly isn't ; the boss has infinite shurikens, you do not. Besides, it's better to conserve magic for attacks and counter-attacks than using them to cancel a few random weak projectiles. Now that you know how to survive, how do you beat that guy out of his pyjamas? This is not too hard here surprisingly enough ; wait for him to start running back and forth aimlessly on the floor and surprise him by jumping/rolling behind him. Then, combo him up ; the Advisor is one of the sole foes that you can actually combo up normally. Take advantage of it! An alternate strategy is to use the Ice Breath against him. The Advisor will be frozen and move at a very slow speed, allowing you to easily counter his attacks. The added weight from the ice will also ground him preventing him from pulling his fancier moves. This strategy require you to constantly nail the boss to keep him frozen and thus, is slightly taxing magic-wise but it's easier although you might prefer the first strategy if you did not get many magic upgrades at this point. Overall, the Advisor's fancy moves are a bit of a hassle but due to his easy to exploit pattern for this first fight, you should eventually conquer him. Skabb Fought: Stage 3-3 (Scavenger Airship Fleet) Attacks: -Charged Sword Slash -Parrot Summon -Treasure Chest Cannon -Scavenger Pistol You might recognize this bastard from the console version. He's still the stage 3 end boss. Fortunately, Skabb is nowhere near as hard on the GBA as on the Wii/PS2 but he still remain difficult. Be on your guard! Skabb won't move for the whole duration of the fight ; he won't pursue you and the pace of his attacks are slow. However, his attacks are something special and Skabb is a block-whore ; you won't be able to land a single hit on him until you fulfill special conditions. First of all, as mentionned before, Skabb has the finest blocking skills this side of the Dragon Land Realm ; attacking him in normal circumstances is a waste of time, effort, and breath energy. Unlike Naga, you cannot break him out of his blocking stance. In fact, if you keep attacking, Skabb will eventually get sick of you pummeling him and will charge up his sword with purple energy before delivering the mother of all downward slashes to you. This will, of course, knock a HUGE chunk off your health meter so be smart and don't attack him in normal circumstances. Now, regarding his attacks, Skabb will use three of them. First, he can summon parrots that will follow you and try to smack you whenever they get the chance. They do little damage but once summoned they will be on your tail the whole time and won't let up until killed. Furthermore, although the damage inflicted by each strike from the parrots is low, it adds up surprisingly quickly if you let them live so, be sure to swat them. Skabb's second attack is to use his pistol. You'll know when he will use it because of the sound effect and the little spinning trick he'll do with the pîstol before firing it. Skabb's pistol is actually quite powerful and Skabb has frustratingly good accuracy ; be SURE to jump AFTER he has fired his pistol or else, he WILL hit you in mid-air. Skabb's last attack is both his strongest and his Achille's heel. He will fire the cannon mounted into the treasure chest on top of his head. A flashing warning symbol will appear at the top of the screen to show where the cannonball will fall and then, it will fall and cause an explosion. The cannonballs are Skabb's strongest attack alongside the charged sword slash ; be SURE not to be hit. So, how do you beat Skabb? Well, notice how I said that the cannon was his weakness? Rather than just dodge the cannoballs, try and smack them in mid-air. A successful strike will send them flying. If you knock them back into Skabb, he will be stunned and become vulnerable to regular attacks! At this moment, get in close and go nuts on him. Be careful however! Skabb can still use the parrot summon attack when stunned and any parrots on-screen will take the opportunity to interrupt your combos if you let them live ; be sure to kill them all before attacking Skabb himself. Overall, Skabb require patience and technique but you should eventually beat him. Electricity Spirit Fought: Stage 4-1 (Electricity Temple) Attacks: -Hyper Charge -Thunder Sphere Summon This is the final elemental Spirit boss. This fight has a very unique pace and might take you by surprise the first time you do so. This boss doesn't have the most varied offense around but know that despite this, he CAN kill you if you're not careful and in under 10 seconds to boot... so no slacking off! First of all, DO NOT run up to this boss when the fight begin. This boss has two modes between which it will altern the first being the Hyper Charge mode. During the Hyper Charge, the Electricity Spirit will be super-charged with electricity and be invincible. DO NOT touch him, at any cost! If you do, you'll take MASSIVE damage and if he can multi-hit you, he'll kill you instantly. YIKES! So, take advantage of the boss's small size and low speed and run the heck away. After a while, the boss will get sick of chasing after you and head to the center of the arena where it will turn blue. This is your chance to attack him!... but keep in mind that this is also the moment when he'll start to summon Thunder Spheres at an absolutely crazy rate ; within seconds, there will be twelve on your tail at least. Be SURE to eliminate them or else, they will overwhelm you and kill you in only a few seconds. Fortunately, Thunder Spheres tend to stack up so you shouldn't have much difficulty. Be sure to give yourself some breathing room after the boss has stopped summoning Thunder Spheres ; it's the signal that it will Hyper Charge itself again. If you're worried about the boss Hyper Charging itself while you combo it up, use the Earth Breath attack on it ; you can use it from the higher ledges to strike him from a safe distance and due to the elemental properties of the boss, it will do decent damage to it. The pattern then loop on. A surprisingly simple attack pattern but still, as stated before, this boss can easily insta-kill you with both of its attacks so don't take this battle for granted! Advisor (2) Fought: Stage 4-3 (Celestial Temple Inner Sanctum) Attacks: -4 Hits Combo -Shuriken Throw -Multi Air Shuriken -Dummy Teleport Counter -Air Slash Teleport Counter -Ground Slash Counter You already fought the Elemental Spirits early so it's a no-brainer that you won't see them here again. But, what's this? Rather than having a ghostly image of Cynder (AKA the Elemental Dragon) waiting for you at the end of the Celestial Temple, you have the Advisor! This guy has been itchin' for a rematch and well, he's significantly tougher this time. This time around, the Advisor doesn't play around and will actively try to attack you, pursuing you accross the room. He also ditches the three hits karate combo for a more effective sword-based four hits combo. He also has a new counter attack ; namely, the Ground Slash Counter. No, the boss is not being an idiot if he stands there, making a pose with his sword pointed upward. Try to attack him at this moment and you will be the one who will be hurt instead. His attacks are essentially the same apart from that. Still, this fight is much different due to the simple fact that the Advisor now seek to eliminate you rather than simply running back and forth aimlessly, throwing random attacks. First of all, notice how the Advisor laugh at you after landing a successful attack. This wasn't much of a factor during the first fight since he aimlessly ran around anyway... but this time, due to the enemy pursuing you, approaching him may be difficult. One way to approach him is to con him into jumping after you and striking you with shurikens. Although it requires you to sacrifice health, you'll take a lot less damage than if the Advisor had unleashed a combo on you and he'll leave himself wide open for a counter-attack all the same. If you want to beat him the fair way or simply doesn't have enough health to out last him (which will most likely be the case on Hard mode) then there are some ways to approach him safely. First of all, the Advisor, just like Spyro, has lag after missed attacks. If you jump toward him, gliding just over him, you will be likely to trigger his combo. While the Advisor is busy striking thin air, run up to him and smack him. An alternate strategy is to take advantage of the fact that he only attack in the air when at the peak of his jumps. Lure him into trying to fight you in the air and use a tail swipe to knock him out of the air. Then, land near him and smack him when he get back up. Try not to engage him in direct combat ; his combo is greatly damaging and if you strike first when he's idle, he will most likely counter with the Dummy Teleport or the Air Slash Teleport, both of which do decent damage. Oh and, one final note. The Advisor has wisened up since last fight and apparently has put on a warm coat under his pyjamas ; you can no longer freeze him with the Ice Breath. You can still use it if it's your breath attack of choice but keep in mind that it won't be nearly as incredibly effective as it was last fight. All in all, this is a relatively difficult fight but if you made it this far, you can beat him. Advisor (3) Fought: Stage 5 (Temple of Souls) Attacks: -6 Hits Combo -Shuriken Throw -Multi Air Shuriken -Dummy Teleport Counter -Air Slash Teleport Counter -Ground Slash Counter The final stage is very different from the console version, as you might have noticed. Namely, the first part of the final stage (Mountain of Malefor) is removed entirely ; you're sent directly to the Temple of Souls to face the game's final boss... or rather, in this version, final bossES. Yep, it's the Advisor. Again. Didn't you just fight him like, a mere moment earlier? Actually, this fight is VERY different from the two last Advisor fights and is one heck of a brutal fight! The first thing that you will notice is that the Advisor is no longer playing around at all. He will charge toward you with a single-minded fury unseen in most video game bosses, intend on turning you into a little purple heap of shattered bones. Namely, he will be on your tail the whole time and he will use all of his tricks to their fullest this time. DON'T. TRY. TO. ENGAGE. HIM. DIRECTLY. Hope that was clear enough. If you have the misfortune of attempting direct physical combat, the Advisor will proceed to unleash a looooong 6 hits combo that will inflict an absolutely ludicrous amount of damage upon you ; even with all health upgrades, he can easily tear through a third of it with one combo. NOW that's serious damage! So, don't get close. Another new point is that the Advisor will rapid-fire his shurikens from aside and his jumping speed is a LOT faster this time so he will be harder to nail. You will also notice that he will teleport around a lot, leaving dummies all over the place and constantly trying to land a downward slash on your head after teleporting. There's not much you can do about avoiding damage here but you can still exploit his pattern. First of all, the jumping flaw remain although the high speed make it risky. Furthermore, he may use one of his two counters if you try to strike him in mid-air. Still, it will net you a few painless hits once in a while. Likewise, the glide/roll evasion tactic will not be so reliable anymore even if due to the fact that due to the Advisor's combo now being very long, he'll step very far away from his original location while executing it meaning that you may not have the time to smack him in the middle of said combo. So... considering the last few methods aren't exactly reliable, what's the new best method? How do you beat up that ninja freak? Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot of ways around it ; be more aggressive than he is and lead the pace of the fight. Don't let him corner you and constantly harass him with your breath attacks. Keep jumping and rolling, forcing him to do awkward moves and trying to mess him up. If you can force him in a situation when he can't attack you easily and thus force him to run away from you without teleporting, you'll be able to close in and do attacks of your own. Once you get your hits in, try to corner the boss against a wall so that he may not be able to easily mount a counter-attack. This fight IS difficult but eventually, you'll prevail if you keep at it. King Gaul (1) Fought: Stage 5 (Temple of Souls) Attacks: -Form 1- -Crushing Body Blow -Earthquaker Blow -Form 2- -Crushing Body Blow -Earthquaker Blow -Downward Crushing Swipe -Form 3- -Crushing Body Blow -Earthquaker Blow -Downward Crushing Swipe -Dark Sphere -Form 4 (Hard mode-only)- -Crushing Body Blow -Earthquaker Blow -Downward Crushing Swipe -Dark Sphere First of all... the game kick you out of the stage after you beat the Advisor for a reason. HEAD BACK TO THE OTHER STAGES AND GET EVERY UPGRADE THAT YOU CAN, BUILD UP YOUR BREATH OF CHOICE TO MAX LEVEL, AND FILL UP YOUR FURY METER. You will thank me later, believe me. First of all, forget about the surprisingly simplistic boss that awaited you at the end of the Wii/PS2 version. The GBA version of Gaul is downright cruel and feature no less than three forms that you must all defeat in a row with no regeneration whatsoever between each. So... don't whine if you come unprepared and get your tail handed out to you! That warning above was there for a reason! Now, due to the fact that Gaul has several forms, I'll divide this guide into sections, one for each form. -FORM 1- Once the fight begin, Gaul will start to tremble. No, he's not cold nor is he scared. Gaul is (thank goodness) kind enough to telegraph his attacks ; he'll start trembling whenever he's about to attack. So, I suggest you hop on top of the Well of Souls proper and prepare yourself. Gaul has only one attack in the first part of the fight but frankly, that's all he needs ; he'll unleash a double downward punch that do decent damage but has short range. But the attack itself is not the main concern. Rather, what will worry you is the earthquake it will cause, making boulders fall from the ceiling. Like Fire Spirit's Firestorm and Naga's Strong Slash attack, the projectiles that are summoned by this attack come at random locations and come down fast so you'll need to roll constantly to avoid them. Once it's done, Gaul will either chain several Earthquaker Blows together or jump toward a random direction. If he attack again, keep rolling but if he jumps, here's your chance! Get close and melee him up! BE SURE to combo him up only ONCE however. This apply to all forms: never, never, NEVER try to do more than one full combo on Gaul or else, he'll counter with the mother of all left body blows, sending you flying and removing a HUGE chunk off your health meter. This first form has a simple pattern although the random rocks WILL pose problem. Keep smacking him and when his health meter is emptied, Gaul will point the Soul Gauntlet at the Well of Souls and suck tortured souls out of it, recharging himself with dark magic and refilling his health meter. You should try to kill this form quickly to minimize damage from the rocks. DO NOT use the Fury mode on this form, keep it for later. If you're doing well, you shouldn't lose more than a fifth or a quarter of your health on this form. Keep at least three quarters of your magic, if possible. Form 2 begins! -FORM 2- Gaul changes strategy and will now become more aggressive. He'll fight in a way not unlike his first form in the Wii/PS2 versions, doing series of high and low jumps while striking downward with his weird gauntlet weapons. Fortunately, he won't instant-kill you in this version. On another hand, he has killer timing and attacking him when he's jumping around is hazardous. Trying to avoid him might also prove difficult since Gaul is huge and can move relatively quickly ; your best bet of avoiding him are continuous double jumps. Be SURE to keep Gaul on-screen or else, he'll do a long jump toward you and most likely net you in mid-air. Once in a while, he'll stop and do the Earthquaker Blow attack. Dodge the rocks and take the opportunity to strike back! As usual, don't be greedy ; the Crushing Body Blow is painful. After you empty his health meter again, he will charge up one final time... If you are doing well, you should clear this form with at least two thirds of your health left and half of your magic left. On Normal, you may want to use the Fury mode here but I recommend you keep it for form 3. Definitely do not use Fury mode on this form in Hard mode. -FORM 3- Gaul is now at full power and once again change strategy. He'll now play the coward card and jump to either of the corners of the room before firing homing spheres of dark magic at you. The spheres do fairly large amounts of damage and have limited homing capabilities, making them a pain to dodge. The first thing is to learn to dodge the dark spheres. If you try to dodge them from the ground, you'll have little success, especially if you're close enough for Gaul to be on-screen. Instead, stay on the Well of Souls and the statues. Double-jump above the dark spheres when they get close to you, about one time and a half the length of Spyro's body. Keep dodging dark spheres and get closer to Gaul. If you manage to get close enough, interrupt his dark sphere shooting and melee him up! Be SURE to strike Gaul's body however ; your attacks go through his hand. As usual, be wary of his powerful counter-attack. After you stopped attacking or that he smacked you with his Crushing Body Blow, Gaul will make a serie of jumps toward the other corner of the room. Gaul moves quickly ; you won't be able to catch up before he can resume firing at you. Still, sometimes, he'll stop in the middle of the room to unleash an Earthquaker Blow or make a few timid hops toward you to try to strike you with Downward Crushing Swipes. Remain evasive ; he won't stay still for long and your best chance to attack is to strike him when he's charging up the Dark Spheres. Note that if you have plenty of magic to spare, you can cancel out the Dark Spheres with breath attacks ; your attacks and Gaul's will cancel each others. Still, since Gaul won't let up with his barrage, I recommend you only counter the Dark Spheres in such a way if you have both a lot of magic left and know you won't be able to dodge the incoming Dark Sphere with a jump. Now, if you are on Normal, the fight ends here so you'll definitely want to use the Fury mode there. However... if you're on Hard mode, Gaul will stick his Soul Gauntlet out and suck up one last bunch of tortured souls. I hope for you that you still have at least a third of your magic because that things are about to get very rough (as if it wasn't hard enough already). -FORM 4 (Hard mode-only)- First of all, congratulations on making it this far on Hard mode. That's not an easy feat at all! Still, you're not out of the woods yet, far from it! This final form of Gaul has no new attacks but if you managed to keep the Fury mode, you'll definitely want to unleash it now. Gaul ditches the predictable pattern of form 3 for something more akin to the final Advisor's attack pattern. In short, Gaul will become very aggressive and reveal his full speed. He will constantly jump toward you, trying to unleash Downward Crushing Swipes. After a while of trying to smack you, he'll retreat to one of the corners and chain up Earthquaker Blows and Dark Spheres in a rapid-fire fashion in an attempt to overwhelm you before unleashing one last Earthquaker Blow and jumping toward you to swipe at you in the middle of the attack. Gaul is definitely fighting dirty this time and there are very little openings for you to attack him. Due to this, physical attacks are always hazardous, period. Still, his Earthquaker Blow spamming has an advantage ; due to the increased amount of boulders, there will be more green gems being produced... which is how you will attack Gaul this time. Take the breath you're most comfortable with (hopefully, it's fully upgraded) and unload everything you got on Gaul. Since this is the only way you can attack him without making yourself vulnerable, be sure to make your attacks connect so you don't waste magic. Due to this, don't bother trying to counter the Dark Spheres with your breath attacks not that it will do much good anyway ; since Gaul mix up his Dark Sphere shooting with Earthquaker Blow attacks constantly, the risk of being smacked by a falling rock while countering the Dark Spheres is high. It's better to just keep rolling through the attacks. If you run out of magic, you will have major difficulties attacking Gaul but if you have enough health and can get a few attacks on him once in a while without getting yourself Crushing Body Blow-ed to oblivion, you should be able to eventually outlast him. Yeah, Gaul is one heck of a boss but take heart! You're at the end of the game! With perseverence, memorization, and a bit of luck, you'll finally take him down! King Gaul(2) Fought: Stage 5 (Temple of Souls) Attacks: -Crushing Body Blow -Earthquaker Blow -Downward Crushing Swipe -Dark Sphere So, you finally beat Gaul, don't you? Oh! What's this? Spyro has absorbed the powers of the Well of Souls and became the reincarnation of the Dark Master! First of all, don't worry at all. Unlike the console version Dark Master Spyro, who was fighting on equal ground with Gaul, this version of Dark Master Spyro overwhelm him by a very large margin. In fact, you'll notice that in the GBA version, your health and magic recover automatically and you get a MAJOR upgrade in speed. Sweet!... however, no Fury mode. Oh well, it's a small price of the awesome amount of power you now wield. Gaul will now fight identically to whatever form was the last one before Spyro transformed but Gaul is now hardly a threat regardless of the form taken. Only his Crushing Body Blow inflict sufficient damage to have a chance of killing you and even then, you can now infinite Gaul without him being able to break out of hit stun. In the console version, the game ends after you have beaten Gaul... but on the GBA, you still have one last battle to fight... Dark Army Fought: Stage 5 (Temple of Souls) Attacks: -3 Hits combo Well, this is it. The final battle. The death of their king has GREATLY angered the Dark Ones and Dark Master or not, they're going to take you DOWN! Namely, behold as a huge flood of Dark Ones fall from the ceiling and attempt to bum-rush you into oblivion. You CAN lose this fight ; the foes come in fast and furious and won't let up either until you beat all of them or until they overwhelm you. However, compared to the King Gaul battle as regular Spyro, this is nothing. The first thing to do is not lose your cool and make sure to keep your foes running. You now have the advantage in terms of speed and the sheer amount of power Dark Master Spyro wield allow you to insta-kill individual Dark Ones. Run back and forth, forcing foes to form clumps and then, charge into them to clear them off the screen. On Easy and Normal, you'll face a moderate amount of foes but on Hard, a LOT of foes will come pouring down from the ceiling and the flood will not let up for a signficantly longer while. You will know that you're close to victory when the Dark Ones start attacking from above, using the statues and the Well of Souls as safe points from which they can drop down to catch you off-guard. Eventually, you will defeat the Dark Army and win the game. Congratulations! Now, enjoy the ending. You definitely deserved it (especially if you've been playing on Hard mode)! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Updates? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Future updates for the guide might include: -alternate strategies (if new ones are submitted) -speed strategies -attack differences for the Easy difficulty setting (if it apply) Apart from that, the boss guide is mostly completed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) End & Credits -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks to: MJ (Darkspyro forums) for: -Alternate strategy for Advisor(1) -pointing out one attack that I forgot for Advisor(2) and Advisor(3) (Ground Slash Counter) -pointing out that you can destroy the shurikens of the Advisor (all battles) with the breath attacks as well as King Gaul's Dark Spheres (both fights) --- Thanks to: Sierra, Krome, and Amaze Entertainment for: -creating Spyro 7 (The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night) --- If you have any comments, suggestions, and/or alternate strategies, feel free to send them to me via e-mail (contact informations are at the beginning of the guide). Have a nice day everyone and enjoy the game!