Execution
| Crusade |
|---|
| Neophyte -> Kraken -> Guardian -> Execution -> Overgrowth -> Anomaly -> Phobia |
Execution is the fourth boss of the game and the most unique players will encounter. It is one of only 2 bosses which only has a single form (the other being Xulgon) and it plays differently from every other boss.
Appearance
Execution appears as an alien like creature with orange pixels along with 4 tenticles and many white studs placed mainly across the top half of it. It resides in a dark blue container with walls to either side of it.
Cultists have a single layer of tough sand coloured or grey coloured pixels (depending on the type of minion) on the outside of their design with green/pink pixels surrounding their core. Green cultists have a single white stud in front of them whereas pink cultists have a dark grey stud with 2 smaller studs behind it.
Both Execution and its cultists share the same sand coloured core frame, however pink cultist's frame is darker and slightly red instead of the pale yellow sand colour.
Nightmare Execution swaps its orange pixels for a much more dark blue and changes the colour of its core frame, all its studs and the inside of its container to red. Execution's eye also changes to yellow. Green cultists appear a much darker green while pink cultists stay the same colours. Their core frames change to something different from Execution's core frame with a dark green frame for green cultists and a magenta frame for pink cultists.
Personality and Traits
Battle
Phase 1
Execution starts off the fight by just floating within its cage protecting it from any damage and occasionally shooting cursed powerups. In order to progress the fight, players must wait for the lasers at the sides to destroy the eleven walls blocking the lasers from hitting Execution. Each time a wall is destroyed usually a spread of bullets is spawned with more bullets spawning as less walls remain, however, 2 of the 22 total walls drop a Shield/2 Turret powerup pair instead. The damage output of the lasers can be increased by attacking the blue bar underneath Execution. Each laser deals 75 damage per second which is increased up to 300 when fully powered up. The bonus damage gained diminished back down to 75 over time, diminishing faster when at higher damage values. The more damage dealt to the bar, the more powered up the lasers get.
Two types of cultist minions will spawn from alternating sides around every 11/13/6 seconds but will spawn more infrequently the more minions there are. The fight will start with summoning 3 green cultists and from then on every third cultist will be pink. Cursed powerups shot by Execution will summon a cultist as long as there aren't too many minions currently in the arena. If too many minions are present the curse will instead summon a homing bullet which tries to ram you, lasting for 15/12.75/16.5 seconds. The damage up and turret curse both summon a green cultist while the convert curse will summon a pink cultist.
Cultists wander about the arena and turn upon reaching an edge. Cultists also attack occasionally but will attack more often when less cultists are active.
Green Cultists
The more common minions, these cycle between 3 attacks based on different factors such as what number unit they are, distance from the nearest player or how many times they've attacked:
- Many small yellow diamonds which together form arrow shapes, these deal 25 damage to any pixel they come in contact with per bullet (including the bar which powers up the lasers beside Execution).
- Circle bullets shot in a variety of different ways ranging from a single stream of bullets, mini walls of bullets or just all around the minion.
- If a player is close to a cultist of this type, they may fire 3 or 4 streams of close range bullets around themselves.
Pink Cultist
These also cycle through 3 attacks:
- A pink homing bullet with a spiral in the center which gives the confused debuff if hit by it instead of damaging or killing the player. The confused debuff reverses the players controls and changes the screen colours for 3/2.325/3.45 seconds. Outside of nightmare difficulty if a confused player takes damage the debuff will be cancelled.
- A bullet may be tossed towards a players direction which stays for 15 seconds before despawning.
- If a player is closish to a cultist of this type they may summon a large bullet around them which damages any player caught in it a couple seconds after it's spawned
Throughout this fight shield containers or time bombs may spawn. Time bombs in this fight have a 20 second timer which if they're not destroyed in time they will explode and summon a vortex in the background which moves players, cultists and shield containers clockwise around it. The vortex cannot despawn and will stay for the rest of the fight. If one bomb explodes no other bombs will spawn.
Phase 2
Once the lasers break all walls, the glass container Execution resides in breaks and the background turns red signaling the start of phase 2. Execution will begin moving around much more rapidly and will start attacking you itself. Curses are no longer shot.
Attacks include
- Shooting a bullet towards every cultist which is currently alive causing all of them to enrage and start rapidly charging the player for 8/7/11 seconds. Cultists will not start any new attacks while enraged but will finish any attacks they were doing before. After calming down all cultist will attack at the same time.
- Tossing many bullets towards you. These bullets have a limited range which they can travel.
- Many bullets which inflict the confused debuff but that don't home towards the player.
- Many slower larger bullets shot either in all directions or towards the player.
- A long stream of diamond bullets shot directly towards the player. This attack predicts the players movement. There are also gaps every few bullets.
- A laser which rotates around Executions core and cycles between on and off every second.
- As Execution's core is attacked Execution summons a confusion bullet towards the player.
Nightmare Mode
Nightmare Execution contains both some new attacks and some AI changes which make the stage much more difficult.
Cultists have the ability to turn 90 or 180 degrees to face the player causing them to actively pursue the player no matter where they are. Additionally both types of cultists gain an extra attack in nightmare. Green cultists gain a landmine attack comprised of a static bullet which lingures for 18 seconds before shooting a single bullet towards the nearest player. The bullet shot can deal 50 damage to any pixel it comes in contact with. Pink cultists gain an extra attack to their attack pattern shot instead of every third tossed bullet. They can shoot a laser towards a player which moves with them and cycles between on and off 3 times before despawning.
Execution itself has a couple borrowed attacks it uses over the course of the fight. These include;
- A large intangible bullet on top pf a player which becomes dangerous after a couple seconds, borrowed from Xulgon.
- Lots of bubbles from Kraken at the very bottom of the arena, either in evenly spaced groups across the whole arena, randomly across the whole arena or directly under the player.
- Execution can also summon an unused bullet storm from Xulgon, however it comes too late within its attack pattern to be seen.
Upon reaching phase 2 Execution additionally gains these attacks;
- The unused bullet storm from Xulgon can actually spawn now.
- A large amount of fast circle bullets also from Xulgon can be fired. This attack is typically layered with multiple other attacks making this one very dangerous.
Around the start of phase 2 Execution will fire an unused double gun curse from Guardian which when collected will summon a bullet which accelerates very quickly towards the player every time they move, however it does not accelerate or turn when the player isn't moving. This bullet does not despawn on its own and will only go away if it hits the player.
Pacifist Achievement
Since the lasers on both sides of Execution have a minimum amount of damage that they can deal it is possible to complete this stage without shooting, thus there is an extra achievement for it.
The only requirements to obtain it is to complete the stage without a bullet being fired from any player's gun and for the difficulty to not be on Easy. Bullets from cannons, barrages or turrets are completely fair game and if a cultist dies from the three mentioned powerups or other cultists the achievement will still be awarded upon completion of the stage.
Statistics
Medal Times
| Easy/Normal | Nightmare | |
| Bronze | 6:30 | 9:00 |
| Silver | 5:45 | 7:00 |
| Gold | 3:30 | 5:00 |
Powerups
- Boss Curses
- Green Spawn/Homing Ball A: 2 Turret
- Pink Spawn/Homing Ball: Convert
- Green Spawn/Homing Ball B: 3 Damage
- Each Green Cultist
- Drop A (<2 Shield): 3 Barrage/Shield
- Drop A (2+ Shield): 2 Cannon/3 Slowmo
- Drop B (<2 Shield): 2 Damage/Shield
- Drop B (2+ Shield): Damage/Freeze
- Each Pink Cultist
- Normal Drop: Turret/Shield
- Shields-Maxed Drop: Double Gun/5 Bumper
- 2 Barricade Drops: 2 Turret/Shield
| Easy Mode |
|---|
At the bottom is the only cursed powerup. It spawns later and less often.
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| Nightmare Mode |
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Trivia
- Execution, Kraken, Phobia, and Medusa are the only official bosses that lack invulnerable pixels on their bodies.
- Execution, Guardian, Hermit, and Prospector are the only official stages that involve part lasers.
- Execution, Guardian, Medusa, Storm, and Hermit are the only official bosses with non-gun parts.
- Execution's Easy stage is the only one to have cursed powerups. This is a bug.
- The green cultist's bullet shooter and the pink cultist's toggling laser are attacks removed from the Redux version of the fight, but restored in Nightmare mode.
- Prior to the Redux update, pink cultists used to be yellow.
- Using the recoil from Cannon, it is possible to clip into Execution's container or to the side of it where the guns that shoot lasers are.
- The container does deal contact damage but will break if a single pixel is destroyed. This will not trigger Execution's second phase, however attacking Execution will trigger phase 2.
- The guns which shoot lasers towards Execution will attack you if you clip too high in the arena. They will stop if you are no longer out of bounds. Destroying the guns will drop no reward and permanently disable the laser for that side.
- The bomb in Execution's stage use to spawn a very large lingering bullet before the Redux update.
- The Execution boss and Neophyte's first form are the only cases where an official boss lacks any guns.
| Official Content | |
|---|---|
| Crusade | Neophyte ! Kraken ! Guardian ! Execution ! Overgrowth ! Anomaly ! Phobia |
| Invasion | Medusa ! Hermit ! Goliath ! Monarch ! Prospector ! Storm ! Xulgon |
| Bonus | Quartet ! Crossfire ! Ball Pit ! Credits ! Timebrain |
| Other Content | The Oracle ! Xulgon's Minions ! Difficulties ! Speedruns |
| Fan Content | |
|---|---|
| Apocalypse | Catalyst ! Beehive ! Xenoware ! Amethyst ! Reaper ! Triton ! Quantum |
| Chaos Campaign | Blizzard ! Siren ! Phineus ! Labyrinth ! Macro ! Prism ! Singularity ! Forge |
| Champion Campaign | Skylier ! Volcanion ! Wireframe ! Phantom |
| Uprising | Mantis ! Cortex ! Overlord |
| Vengeance (Campaign) | Hydra ! Inertia ! Splode ! Attractor ! Terra ! Witch ! AI ! Vengeance (Boss) ! Redemption ! Nightmare-Only Boss |
| Other Content | Cultivator ! Cypher ! Fortress ! Ghost ! Gridlock ! Karma ! THE LOVERS ! Pulsus ! The Psychic ! Tryout |
| Stage Remixes | Bonus (Fan Difficulties) ! Chippy the Anime ! "Completely Normal" Bosses ! Legacy Prospector ! Remixes of the Past ! Slow-Strat Invaders ! Variance (Mechanic Demonstration) |