18 xeodrifter - the final boss and the warp core!

Dear Readers,

Now that I had all the 6 abilities I decided to explore the red planet before facing whatever boss was there to find more upgrades.

I found a health upgrade alright that needed the shift move. I went back to the title screen and saw that there were possibly two more health upgrades so I went back to exploring the earlier planets. I had no more weapon upgrades to find.

I combed the green and purple planets but couldn't find anything else.

I headed straight back to the red planet to investigate the mural that was now finished. I shifted right and encountered the grey boss! It grabbed this big green diamond-shaped thing and escaped upwards! I chased after it with the Rocket.

I continued on a winding path where I had to dash across lava and use the phase shift many times. I eventually got to the boss chamber.

This time the boss was green and had the same patterns as before but it was faster. I died a few times but I managed to whittle its health down. When I got it down all the way it turned grey and did something with its eyes that made weird black hole thing effect happen that sucked the whole scene into itself like it was made out of paper.

I found myself in a new area that was all blue and murky and I had to navigate the tunnel. It had urgent and strange music. There were these long green spiky things that came sideways out of the wall like those spiked pillars in Mario games.

I started hearing some noises and it was the grey boss cowering in a little cache it made for itself, clinging onto the green diamond thing for dear life. I shot at it which killed it and brought me back to the boss room along with the diamond thing. It was the warp core!

When I collected it, a little cutscene played out where I was on my ship and flew out of that little pocket of space and among the stars once more. Hooray!

The credits rolled and included Kevin Cassidy of GoNintendo! He blogged about the game and had it on the site banner as well as the usual awesome Nintendo news. I think he was doing a partnering promo thing at the time but he was cool about it. It was an example of something that always made me happy, when the developer and the press were making and telling us about a game that was really good. When that happens it feels like all is right with the world for a little while :)

This game I had now beaten but it was 97% complete with two remaining health upgrades to find. Where were they? I thought I combed around everywhere. I must've missed something.