Uploaded November 2021 | Updated September 2026, 6 days ago

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Been trying to think of a video title for 4 hours I'm giving up and typing whatever.

Anyway, I wanted to see if it was possible to do this on foot. Luckily, since the boss can brain itself with the thrown objects, all you need is a few gadgets and to maybe not die.

There are ways to go out of bounds in pretty much every level in the game, basically letting you skip to the end of each one. In this level, you can zip out of bounds immediately at the start and circle around to the end of the level, but since you're supposed to be in the Popemobile for this battle, the boss both tanks and deals crazy amounts of damage (over 100 points per tentacle, even on Tourist). This was on Serious difficulty, so a swing of a tentacle dealt 1000 damage and a single thrown object could do up to 600 damage (300 with the splash reduction skill).

You can damage the boss with your guns, but it'll require tons of ammo and take forever, even when using your strongest weapons combined with Rage Serum. Standing under the boss is probably the fastest way to kill it on foot, though there is a low chance of receiving random splash damage. The safest way is hiding behind the pillars at the edges of the arena and taking shots from there, but you'll be there a while. The obelisk in the middle can mess with the Black Hole's line of sight which is why I blew it away.

The boss pattern is very simple:
- Throw stuff for a while
- Spring out whacking tentacles
- Spawn a group of enemies, cover self
- Throw stuff while whacking Sam off with tentacles
- Throw stuff endlessly until dead
The stages advance based on time rather than actions/health, so Time Warping during the whacking tentacles will greatly reduce their total number.

You might notice the game spawns the Popemobile right next to you, but entering it is largely a death sentence on higher difficulties, as you'll get hammered by the boss while the long boot up sequence plays out. Theoretically, the best spot to enter it is when the enemy horde is about to spawn, but you'll still need to use gadgets beforehand to make sure you don't get obliterated.

Gadget facts:
Mini Nuke - Boss is unharmed, kills whacker tentacles and breaks thrown objects
Black Hole - Damages boss and whacker tentacles, but doesn't break thrown objects
Psychotropic Grenade - Boss ignores it completely
Holodecoy - Boss ignores it completely

Without the 16x fastforwarding at the end, the battle was just shy of 10 minutes long. Sorry if the game looks like ass, it just doesn't run that well on my aging system. I've also heard the game's not that well optimized.

Chapters:
0:00 Phase 1 - Throw phase
0:34 Phase 2 - Whack phase
1:05 Phase 3 - Shield phase
1:36 Phase 4 - Throw & Whack phase
2:08 Phase 5 - Throw phase
2:15 Waiting game