Before getting into the battles, I'll describe the 3rd level type: The Arctic.
The Arctic is exactly what you'd guess from the name, an icy tundra with a few watery segments.
The music reminded me a bit of "Northern Hemispheres" from Donkey Kong Country, in 8 bit form. A very dangerous sounding song, it made me think about being trapped in a tundra and freezing to death.
There were two new enemies in this stage. The first was a creature frozen in a block of ice. They block your way and you have to use the heat beam to thaw them out of the ice. They look a bit like a smaller version of Not-Gezora, only without the eye.
When freed, they do a strange crawling movement and push you backwards. It doesn't cause any damage but it's a bit annoying.
After dealing with the Iceman, I kept walking for a minute or two and came upon a water segment. I jumped in, and this time I managed to get a screencap showing how the water splashes when you jump in. Dunno how they programmed that, but it's pretty impressive. Another interesting thing is how the screen changes focus when you go underwater.
Here you can see the other new enemy, a little thing I call "Spike Walker". They walk towards you and explode randomly(or instantly if you attack them), sending spikes in every direction. The spikes don't do much damage but they did get me dangerously close to falling into a pit a few times.
Oh, speaking of the pits: Down into the water, the game has a platformer element: bottomless pits. There weren't any of these in the original game, since it was strictly an action game, but the pits were a neat addition.
After getting back on land, I encountered a very unexpected miniboss: Maguma, the Walrus Kaiju. I know this game had some obscure monsters to begin with, but wow. Not that I'm complaining, it's a pretty cool cameo for an unappreciated kaiju.
Maguma's fighting tactics were very simple, he had a freeze beam, and he could charge into you. Not very challenging but certainly more entertaining than the Matango miniboss in the original game.
One really interesting thing about Maguma is that he doesn't die when you defeat him, he turns tail and retreats. This was the first time I had ever seen an enemy monster change direction, let alone retreat. I tried to chase after him, but he dissapeared after I got in the water. Poor bastard.
And that does it for the Arctic. I'll talk about the Manda fight next.
I forgot to mention before, but the music that played during the new monster fights is re-used from themes actually in the games.
So far the themes have been:
Titanosaurus: Gezora's music
Biollante: Hedorah's music
Orga: Baragon/Moguera's music
Manda: Varan's music
Spacegodzilla: MechaGodzilla's music
As for the fight, Manda was a fairly crafty opponent. When it realized one tactic was ineffective, it would immediately change to a different one.
Manda used quite a few tricks, like spitting fire, biting, and the most irritating of all, constricting.
It doesn't mercilessly drain your life down like Gigan's cutter, but it was by far Manda's strongest attack.
One last thing to note (that I found pretty cool) was that the Atragon showed up during the fight to help me out. Manda crushed it with ease, but it was still cool.
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