I was now nearing the end of Entropy. I had just taken down Megalon, and I started up the last Tv screen, to see what I'd get this time.
The result was unpleasant.
The music for this gruesome scene was the Password theme.
I couldn't figure out why this animation was so sinister and violent in comparison to the other two. The whole game seemed to be growing more malevolent.
As I went on to finish Entropy, I began to feel...drained. It's hard to describe. Like I had suddenly became tired when I wasn't before. Most likely it was just the tension from all that had happened in this game getting to me, but who knows.
The last level type on Entropy is what I call the "Shadow Labyrinth". The scenery was recolored from gold to black. The music was an evil ambiance, similar to the UNFORGIVING COLD loop but distinctly different.
The music was my first sign that this level was going to be distressing. I traveled through the maze for about a minute, and I noticed there weren't any creatures hovering around. It was an odd transition from the gold Labyrinth, which was overrun with creatures, to this level that had nothing at all. But then this might be a good thing, maybe there wouldn't be any obstacles and I could get through the level with ease.
Then the screen went dark.
And immediately I snapped out of my "daze" from a few seconds earlier. Everything had been darkened so that the only thing I could see was the Mothra sprite. I couldn't tell where I was going and I ended up frantically running into walls. I heard a noise, the sound of a crowd running through a hallway.
And along with the running, came the roars. Loud roaring sounds, which I would describe as something like a rabid dog the size of an elephant, screaming with fury. And I could tell that whatever was making this noise, there were lots of them.
I knew there was something there, but it wasn't until I did some screencap editing that I got to see what my pursuers looked like:
But at the time I couldn't see where they were, or where I was going. I was literally running blind, and this mob of beasts eventually caught up with me. All I could think was "NO!" as I saw my lifebar rapidly declining. The monsters had taken me down to half of my total health, when I was saved. The "light" came back on, and the attackers had disappeared.
And so the challenge of this level was revealed; Find the exit before the lights go out and a pack of monsters maul you to death.
I was in panic mode now, moving as fast I could go while trying every path I could find for a way out. As I played through the level, the lights went out a total of 3 times. The second time, I would have been dead meat had it not been for one of the wide-eyed statues:
As I stayed close to it, the monsters seem to all avoid me until the light came back. The statue warded them away, somehow. I was safe as long as I stayed near the statue, but at the same time I had to leave to find the exit.
The Shadow Labyrinth turned out to be much smaller than the Gold Labyrinth, as it only took about 6 minutes to navigate to the end. But before the exit, there was a row of halls leading straight down, with no way out once entered. You either got to the exit before the monsters reached you, or you died. Thankfully I made it out.
Only one more boss, Mechagodzilla. I started the battle, and got something unexpected:
Not only did my life shoot back up to 100% again (It seems to do that randomly), but instead of a replacement boss, I was fighting Godzilla.
But any Godzilla fan worth their salt can figure this out. Mecha-Godzilla started off like fighting a clone Godzilla, but his disguise burned away after only 3 life bars. Usually a transformation only occurred at the halfway point.
At this point it was like fighting Mecha-Godzilla in the normal game. Felt kinda nice to fight one of the original game enemies for a change. Although he wasn't exactly like normal, he also had a rainbow beam and finger missiles. This prevented me from doing the old trick of backing him in the corner and hitting with eyebeams in a spot where he can't hit me, but that was always a cheap trick anyways.
But after getting him down to half his health, something weird started to happen. His sprite started to glitch, in much the same way as Gezora had way back in the first world. After a few seconds, the glitches began to form a new shape...
And thus the game had created "Not- Mecha-Godzilla", and I discovered that this visual glitch was somehow related to the game recreating things. The human face on this one gives it a very uncanny look.
It was one of the stronger Replacement monsters, and had the most firepower. Pictured here is it's Mouth Beam, which I got caught in the middle of.
Even though it was a bit stronger, it was also slower than it's original counterpart and couldn't jump around as much. I won the fight by constantly staying out of it's line of fire, bombarding the machine with Poison Powder as I flew over it.
One last thing to do: The hell beast chase. Oh boy. "Might as well just get this over with", I thought.
The Entropy "End Chase" ended up being exactly what I was afraid it would be: A Labyrinth level. All the other chases, although difficult, were extremely straight-forward. You just had to run to the right and not get touched.
But this took all the simplicity out of it. There was no telling how big this labyrinth would be, or where the exit was. And now not only did I have to constantly backtrack to find my way out, I also had to avoid getting 1-hit killed by the red monster.
And for those first 30 seconds, it didn't show up. But I knew it would, and as I started picking up the pace, I heard a loud flapping noise:
And there it was, in a "Flying form". It flew with bat-like wings, and was as fast and relentless as ever. For reasons already stated this was probably the most nerve-wracking of all the "End Chases", and as such I had to keep my focus on the game and not taking screencaps.
However, I did take one of the red monster doing something I found very interesting.
I had managed to lose it by going through a different path than it apparently expected, and it was blocked from attacking me by one of the organic walls of the Red Labyrinth. Or so I thought.
It tried clawing through the wall for a second before opening up it's mouth and tearing the wall apart with the intestine jaws.
But those brief milliseconds that the monster was held back might have been the key to me finding the exit. The path to exit was long and complex, but from what I remember I went up, and then back towards the left. I'm still not sure why I chose that particular way. Just a lucky hunch I suppose.
I was sweating profusely, but my luck had saved me yet again. I hoped that it wouldn't run out before I finished the game. There were only two more worlds to go.
Next was the penultimate world, called "Extus":
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