Kraken
| Crusade |
|---|
| Neophyte -> Kraken -> Guardian -> Execution -> Overgrowth -> Anomaly -> Phobia |
Kraken is the game's second boss. It introduces the player to cursed powerups and shield containers, building up the main game's mechanics. While fairly simple to fight due to having no invulnerable pixels, it shoots bubbles that can knock the player around as well as summon water currents which pushes both the player and every bullet on screen in its direction.
Appearance
Each form of Kraken is a spotted, purple cephalopod. The first form has four arms, and the next two have six arms and a tough, pointed mantle, the latter form having six smaller guns within the mantle. Each core and gun has a light blue border, and it has a red, thin-pupiled eye.
Each minion is similarly colored to Kraken, but with a smaller, simpler core and seven small arms.
Kraken's Nightmare counterpart has a spotless color gradient from bright lime to aqua, with the parts blending into the respective main body part better. All forms also have brown, more widespread armor.
Personality and Traits
Kraken isn't one to pick a fight, and would rather play with its bubbles peacefully. When provoked, however, it becomes surprisingly vehement about killing the player. It speaks without proper grammar, indicating its relatively primitive mind.
Battle
Form 1
Kraken starts the fight like its normal description says, minding its own business. Kraken looks down, ignoring all players and not even attacking for the first 12/15 seconds of the fight unless attacked. Once 12/15 seconds have passed or if Kraken is attacked Kraken will start attacking you itself.
Kraken always starts the fight by spawning a cursed shield powerup above itself. If collected it will spawn a bullet that tries to stay underneath you while constantly shooting bubbles up. Afterwards Kraken will shoot bubbles towards you. Bubbles, unlike most bullets, don't deal any damage if you make contact with them, instead pushing you away from where the bubble was. While not deadly on its own it can push you into a bullet or another bubble which will add its force on top of the previous bubbles force which can easily lead to a chain of bubbles flinging you far away or straight into Kraken. Kraken may spawn bubbles from curses, as a stand alone attack or when disconnecting a chunk of pixels.
Other attacks include :
- 2 streams of yellow circles bullets which turn clockwise or anti-clockwise depending on the stream it's in.
- A single diamond bullet shot from one of the guns every 3-7 seconds which lowers to every 1-5 seconds as guns are destroyed.
- Shooting volleys of orange diamonds from the guns. Once all guns are destroyed Kraken will start shooting the volley of diamonds from its core
- After all guns are destroyed Kraken is able to fire a large sea mine which moves for a bit before coming to a complete stop for around 14 seconds before exploding into 10/9 smaller mines which travel for 2 seconds before dropping straight down.
Periodically throughout this form(and the other 2 forms of Kraken) a shield container may spawn which can be destroyed for a free shield or ignored until it despawns naturally.
Form 2
Like the previous form Kraken starts off by spawning a cursed powerup, this time giving 5 barrages instead of a shield. This curse, if collected, spawns a bullet above the player which move left and right while staying above the player while frequently spawning a small sea mine which falls down.
Along side continuing to fire a single diamond shot from a gun every 3-7 seconds (lowering to 1-5 as guns are destroyed). Kraken is able to fire all attacks from his previous form alongside :
- Pink diamonds towards the player which grows slightly larger and accelerate over the course of a second. These are either fired in short bursts randomly in a 60 degree spread, or in different forms of spokes.
- Firing many sea mines upwards to or past the top of the screen, all of which fall down after a couple of seconds. Most of the time this attack will be fired with a single stream of mines repeatedly shooting left to right and back again but this can be fired in multiple volleys each with 10 mines. This attack always comes with a warning above Kraken.
Occasionally Kraken will also summon water currents either left, right, up or down which pushes both the player and most bullets in the direction of the current for a few seconds. This doesn't effect player bullets or the exploding sea mine bullet (but does effect the mini sea mines after it explodes).
Form 3
At the start of this form Kraken summons 3 minions which circle Kraken until killed and occasionally attack the player if their too close. When attacked the minions shoot bubbles as a revenge attack. You are required to kill all 3 minions in order to damage Kraken's core.
Unlike the prior 2 forms the single diamond shot isn't shot by the main guns, instead shot by the 6 smaller guns within Kraken's mantle. Additionally this attack is shot at a much more stable rate being every 5.9 - 6.1 seconds, lowering to every 3.15 - 3.35 seconds as up to 6 guns are destroyed (whether it be the main 6 guns, the 6 guns in the mantle or a mix of both), and lowering again to every 0.15 - 0.35 seconds depending on Kraken's core hp.
This form doesn't gain any new attacks, but instead reuses attacks from prior form or variations of attacks. Additionally if playing in normal difficulty Kraken can shoot a cursed powerup containing 2 slices which, if collected, summons stationary bubbles across the entire stage which after a short delay expand and triple in size, leaving very small pockets of space to move without popping one. Popping these bubbles sends the player flying a lot further than regular bubbles which can make dodging very difficult while this curse is active. These bubbles pop on their own after 24 - 31.5 seconds.
Once the main 6 guns are destroyed Kraken will start summoning the water currents again but at a much more frequent rate. Kraken will do this regardless of if the minions are still alive or not
Nightmare Mode
Nightmare Kraken is significantly more difficult than its normal counterpart. While most nightmare pallet swaps don't affect the gameplay of the boss apart from potentially having increased pixel health (ranging from an insignificant boost to pseudo invulnerable) Nightmare Kraken's tough grey (formally dark purple) pixels have almost double health and patches of them can be found protecting each tentacle making cutting off its tentacles a much more difficult task, even with the use of a cannon. Additionally some protect the top of Kraken's first form and smaller patches can be found on its 3 minions.
A notable changes is that Kraken notices players almost instantly upon starting the stage. Bubbles are also made a lot more dangerous in nightmare as they fling the player significantly further than in normal. A bullet that is majorly changed is the large sea mine attack. Getting hit by it doesn't cause it to despawn and any other method of removing the bullet, whether it be from a purge dropped in form 3 or from a form dying and clearing bullets, will cause the mine to explode early instead which may catch players off guard.
Kraken's borrowed attacks includes
- From the start
- The streams of bullets sent from one edge to the other by Medusa.
- The ice chunk shot by the Ice Quartet.
- From form 2 onwards
- Storm's meteor attack that splits into many purple bullets that bounce you similarly to bubbles.
- The spinning bullet that shoots 2 streams of bullets also taken from Storm.
- From form 3 Kraken can shoot a spinning homing bullet that shoots 3 streams of bullets taken from Overgrowth.
Nightmare mode also adds a few extra curses at certain points of the fight and changes an existing one.
- Once 2 or more guns are destroyed in form 2 Kraken will send out a 40 dash curse taken from Nightmare Xulgon, which summons a drone bullet that swaps between trying to ram into you and shooting a single bullet towards you
- Once 2 or more guns are destroyed in form 3 Kraken sends out a double gun curse which spawns 5 expanding bullets taken from Overgrowth, each which can be killed by being shot at enough times but split into 2 more bullets if left for too long.
- The 2 slice curse is changed to summon bubbles around the arena that act like Monarch bouncing bullets. While there are less bubbles than the normal curse these bubbles are a lot more dangerous as they are both able to move at a pretty decent speed and repel the player even further than the already strong nightmare bubbles.
Finally Kraken has one last trick. Once all its main guns are destroyed in form 3 Kraken will start sending water currents permanently until the end of the fight. The direction will switch roughly every 5 seconds.
Pop No Bubbles Achievement
Kraken has an extra achievement: beating the stage without getting hit by a single bubble.
To obtain this achievement, bubbles must be avoided at all costs. However, as long as you don't get a game over, taking damage from pixels or harmful bullets is fair game.
Statistics
Medal Times
| Easy/Normal | Nightmare | |
| Bronze | 7:00 | 8:00 |
| Silver | 5:00 | 6:00 |
| Gold | 3:00 | 4:30 |
Powerups
- Form 1
- Bubble Launcher Curse: Shield
- 2 Side Arms: Cannon/3 Repel
- 2 Middle Arms: Turret/5 Slowmo
- Core: Double Gun/Shield
- Form 2
- Bullet Launcher Curse: 5 Barrage
- 2 Side Arms: 3 Damage/5 Slowmo
- 2 Diagonal Arms: Slice/Shield
- 2 Middle Arms: Turret/2 Freeze
- Core: 10 Blink/2 Shield
- Form 3
- 6 Mantle Guns: Cannon
- 2 Side Arms: Turret/2 Repel
- 2 Diagonal Arms: 2 Cannon/5 Slowmo
- 2 Middle Arms: 2 Damage/Shield
- 3 Minions: 2 Cannon/Shield*
- Bubble Field Curse: 2 Slice
*Replaced with 5 Slowmo if Shields are maxed
| Easy Mode |
|---|
There are no cursed powerups.
*Replaced with 5 Slowmo if Shields are maxed |
| Nightmare Mode |
|---|
*Replaced with 5 Slowmo if Shields are maxed |
Trivia
- Kraken, Neophyte, and Xulgon are the only non-Bonus official stages without a time bomb.
- Despite being called "octopus" in the files, the boss's hard, pointed mantle makes it resemble a squid.
- Kraken, Hermit, Storm, and the green Quartet boss are the only official enemies with any guns that don't shield the respective core.
- Kraken, Execution, Phobia, and Medusa are the only official bosses that lack invulnerable pixels.
- Prior to the redux update, Kraken's third form summoned 4 minions, one in each corner of the arena. They attacked identically to how they attack now but instead of circling around Kraken they remained stationary in the corner they spawned in.
- Kraken's minions didn't have their own core sprite until the redux update. Before then they used the same sprite as Kraken's first forms core.
- Due to starting the fight by shooting an unavoidable cursed shield powerup, Nightmare Kraken is one of the few nightmare bosses to give you a shield at the very start of the fight, along with Nightmare Phobia, Hermit and Monarch.
- While the double gun curse in form 3 is unique to Nightmare Kraken, it originates from Overgrowth's files.
| 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) |