King Boo is Awesome!

King Boo is really awesome. For the two of you not in the know, King Boo is the primary antagonist and final boss of the first GCN title ever released, Luigi's Mansion. This game is on my top game of all time list for many reasons, but I'll just stick to the boss fight for now.

First off, you need to have captured at least 40 Boos in order to access his boss room, the last locked room in the house: The hidden basement room. If you try to access the door before having at least 40, King Boo will jump you and send you back to the Mansion's Foyer. It's a bit creepy. Now, for every boo over that limit that you acquire, King Boo's boss fight will become a little easier. I love that logical extra attention to detail as it gives you yet another reason to capture all 50 (besides getting the most rare gem in the game. There are only two in the entire Mansion)

Once you enter the room, there are a couple of jems and coins and an escape mirror on your right. But floating in the center of the room is King Boo staring at Mario in his painting which is hanging on the far wall. Once you decide it's finally time to approach him, you are greeted with a long speech complete with a James Bond Villain-style turnaround. At the end of the speech King Boo kills all the lights and turns the Mario Painting into one of Bowser. King Boo goes into the Bowser painting seemingly possessing Bowser. Bowser then sucks Luigi into the painting. Not many people know this, but Luigi's Mansion is actually a direct sequel to Super Mario 64. See, Mario successfully killed Bowser at the end of the game and somehow got a hold of his corpse. The boss fight is technically against the possessed corpse of Bowser. When you think about it, this game's pretty messed up!

When I first saw the title screen for this game, I assumed that the final boss would be on the roof. I was dead set on it. My brother started laughing hysterically when we first got to the roof of the mansion about halfway through the game. I was.. confused to say the least. I kept wondering where in the world the final boss could possibly take place. Apparently the fine folks at Nintendo were struggling with the same thing so the final boss battle takes place on the roof of the mansion inside a painting.
...O-kay?

Bowser's corpse has a couple of moves:
- Spikey exploding bowling balls thrown in a set of three.
- Sucking you up and chewing on you then spitting you out.
- Fire breath that just seems to heat up the floor directly at his feet. I mean, this makes sense he's.. you know, a corpse.
- When his head is knocked off, (I'm getting to that) he can only throw ice chunks and damn are they annoying!
- You'll probably encounter this at most once but sometimes his head will reattach itself backwards and he'll run in Luigi's direction then bounce around like he's in a pinball game for a little bit although it's quite easy to control his rampage and keep it contained.
- Now this one's really rare for me: Sometimes he'll just jump up and try to land on you. Run like the wind if he does this!

The pattern works like this:
- Bowling balls. Pick which one to suck up.
- Suck up one.
- Bowser will run up to you and prepare to breathe fire or suck you up.
- Right when lowers his head enough for his explosive ball to hit him, make sure you're aimed and release!
- Bowser's head will fall clean off and a (nearly) defenseless King Boo will flail around on the stage a little bit.
- Use this chance to suck on his health.
- Rinse and repeat until he's finished.

Strategy:
- Stay moderately far away from him at all times. This nearly guarantees the likelihood that he'll use his mid-range attack, the spiked bowling balls.
- If you are having trouble aiming at King Boo, use your shadow in relation to his as a reference.
- Rotate the analog stick in small circles (serpentine) to help avoid Bowser's ice breath.
- Use the C-Stick to constantly keep the nozzle focused on King Boo while you serpentine.
- When his head attaches on backwards, position yourself in such a way that he'll run around vertically rather than horizontally.

To get a gold painting, do not dip below 90 hearts and kill him as quickly as you can!

After you defeat him, you get King Boo's crown which the game classifies as a ruby. I personally prefer the way Luigi's Mansion 2 treats this moment as you discover that his crown is the most worthless item in the game since it's made out of glass.

Anyways, with the mansion finally cleared out, you get your brother, go back to the lab, and are treated to one of my favorite moments in the Super Mario Bros. Franchise..