############################################################################### Rico: A Tale of Two Brothers Boss FAQ 02/24/2013 Written by Dr_Coles_Laww for use on GameFAQ s.com Table of Contents: (I) General Info (II) World 1 Boss (III)World 2 Boss (IV) World 3 Boss (V) World 4 Boss (I) General Info One of the most interesting things about Rico is the way the boss levels are handled. The health your brother (the boss) has depends on how many crystals you missed on the previous seven levels in the world. If you didn't miss a single crystal, you and he will be on equal footing-3 hearts each. Miss a few? He'll be at 4 hearts. Miss a few more? 5 hearts. Other than the extra health, the boss does not get more powerful (No new attacks or extra speed or anything). Hopefully I can update this in the future with the exact number of crystals needed for each extra heart. You can miss a healthy number of crystals before the boss gets that fifth heart though. If you don't like how many hearts the boss has, you can always replay a prior level and try and do better. (II) World 1 Boss Ride the elevator up, and do watch the acid pools :). The battle starts with your brother striking a pose and absorbing all the crystals you missed (if any). He'll stand up high, and launch an energy ball or two at you. Then, he'll change position and repeat. Those balls will hurt you until they bounce off a surface and turn white, then they're harmless. Problem is, they're harmless to him too. However, once you touch a white ball, it will glow blue- now it's capable of damaging your brother (but not you). The idea here is to let the energy balls bounce off the platform, then headbutt them from below and get them to hit your brother. If he's up high, you can try the daring approach. Stand directly beneath him, so he fires straight down. Sidestep the shot, then headbutt it straight up into him. Alternatively (and more safely), you can stand to the side and let the shot come in at an angle. headbutt it and send it careening around the arena-one of them is bound to connect sooner or later. The energy balls will deflect each other, for better or for worse. I was spared a hit a few times, but saw more than one of my 'perfect' shots deflected away. After the first hit, he'll fire a bit faster, but the concept is the same. Take him down to get your whip. (III) World 2 Boss This was the most frustrating of the four bosses for me. (I HATE those bats!) There are three parts to this battle. first, a bat will spawn and swoop from left to right and back again. This will go on until you kill it. If you stand in the exact center (directly under the boss), the bat's arc will take it harmlessly underneath you, and with a slight sidestep you can whip it on the way back up. I died many times before I figured that one out. Once the bat is dead, you enter phase 2. Your brother will spawn a few random blocks and drop them, also randomly. If one falls on you, it's instant death, so be careful. Then, more bats. Reposition yourself in the center, on top of any blocks that fell, and kill the next bat. Now, more blocks. The goal is to get a tower of blocks high enough to whip your brother. You do NOT want this tower to be right up the middle-it's difficult to whip your brother from the middle without hitting him. jump at him from the left or right. If you don't like how a tower is forming, break a few blocks with your whip . Once you whip your brother, he'll fly around and smash most/all of the blocks. Stay up on your tower and jump as needed to avoid him. Now the process repeats. Once you whip him once, he'll drop more blocks after each bat death, which actually helps (the bats are far worse than the blocks). Whip him 2 (or more) more times to claim victory! (IV) World 3 Boss Hop on one of the central platforms to make your brother appear. Well, someone learned their lesson :) -your brother got tired of the sting of the whip and is sporting a protective bubble. Oh, and lock-on missiles. Oh, and the floor is gone. Well, fire up the merry-go-round and let's get started! Your brother will fire a missile at you, which will arc lazily around, then flash and beep, then shoot in a straight line for a brief distance. If you stay still on one platform, the missile does a very poor job of tracking you- so much for that threat :). Your goal is to get the missile to hit your brother's bubble. He'll be floating around the perimeter. Lining up the shot takes a bit of luck. If he's up high, jumping just as the missile starts to flash can get it to shoot into him, but the hit will count even if the missile just arcs around and gets him. Once you burst his bubble, whip him to seal the deal-go quickly though-that bubble will respawn. If he gets hit with the missile while he's below the platforms, just wait a bit and he'll re-bubble himself and make a new missile. (V) World 4 Boss This boss battle is more sensitive to position than the others, so it's ASCII map time. 2 B 5 1 4 ccccccccccccccccccccccccPPPPcccccccccccccccccccccccc 3 B= Brother position during the missile stage P=Platform you rode up on c=conveyor 1,2,3,4,5-positions referenced below At least there's no bats. Ride the annoyingly long elevator to the top. Take note of the scenery-you do not want to fall. At the top, conveyers move away from the center-they're not too much of a threat, but do be aware of them. Your brother appears, strikes his pose, then into the bubble again. He spawns three (!!!) missiles from the left-no good, no good at all. Fortunately, you can shoot down the missiles. I recommend you position yourself about halfway between the platform and your brother (position 1 above) and fire like mad off to the left as the missiles spawn-you'll need to tap left to hold position against the conveyor. If one comes in low and at your level, you'll take it out. For the ones that come in high, wait for them to flash then drift back with the conveyor (stop tapping left). Your aim here is to destroy two of the missiles to give us some breathing room. If you accidentally destroy them all, three more will spawn. Once you're down to one missile, you need to crash it into your brother. Here's how I did it. You need to get the missile to arc around and up at about position 3. If you get the missile high up and to the left of your brother (position 2), move to position 4, near the edge. The missile should fly at you from position 2-jump over it and it will lazily arc around at position 3. Now, still from position 3, double jump to position 4. You want to get the missile to go just to the right of your brother-that way, it'll arc around and hit him. You can also go for a direct hit-I just had more success with the arc. You need to double jump-if you single jump, the missile will arc just under your brother. If it misses, run back towards position 1, dodge the missile, then move to position 4 to get it back in position. Pop that bubble! Yeah! He's exposed! He's-still too high to hit. Now, he'll start flinging those energy balls at you. just like World 1, except no walls to reflect off of. Getting a direct hit is tricky, and amounts to more dumb luck than anything. Most balls are fired off in a series of three, and the majority of charged shots got deflected by his next volley. If you hit a ball just after it bounces, you'll send it up fast enough to hit him, but your timing needs to be great. If you're lucky, he'll change position and walk into your shot. Also-you should change position after getting a charged white ball-if you're off in the oppostie corner from where you hit the ball, he'll fire at you and not the incoming ball. Once you get a shot to connect, it's back to the missiles. The pattern doesn't change. Beat him to unlock the Ultimate Power-you know, the power he had, that you were able to defeat without having? Hey, is there a refund on this thing? :) I hope this mini-guide has proven useful to you!