darkSpyro

Well, decided to do a boss guide of my own. Although I plan to do a full boss guide of all versions eventually, I'll do one for the GBA and console (Wii/PS2) versions for now only.

Since HIR already released a boss guide about the console version, I'll post the GBA version first. Here goes!

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GBA boss guide:

Fire Spirit
Fought: Stage 1-2 (Fire Temple)
Attacks:
-Fireball Toss
-Firestorm

The first boss in the GBA game. The Spirits are DRASTICALLY different from their console versions so do not expect them to be as lame... well, maybe except for this one. Unless you fight him on Hard mode, he should be absolutely no threat. His strategy consist of floating slowly toward you, stopping once in a while to toss a fireball at you. If you're far, simply dodge it by jumping. If you're close, you can still jump. The only threatening attack is the firestorm, which make fireballs rain from the ceiling at random. However, since he is totally still during this time, it leaves you with the opportunity to open a king-sized can of whoop-ass upon him.

This guy is truly not a real challenge. Simply stay away and wait for him to throw a fireball. Then, get close to him and melee him non-stop. As he has no way of breaking out of hit stun, the sole thing preventing you from infinite-ing him to oblivion are the lava pools on the side of the arena. No big deal ; stop attacking when you get near them and get back the opposite edge and wait for him to once again get in range.

Repeat 'til he's toast.

Earth Spirit
Fought: Stage 2-2 (Earth Temple)
Attacks:
-Low Punch
-Crushing Blow

This guy is more tedious than difficult. Whenever you win seems to be merely a matter of whenever or not you've been collecting relics whenever you could. With all of them, you should cream this boss. Without an upgraded health meter and a few magic upgrades, this fight will be very difficult.

The Earth Spirit has an extremely basic pattern. He walk slowly toward you and then use either his low punch or crushing blow. On Easy and Normal, the attacks do moderate damage but on hard, they take a big chunk off your health meter... which is a problem as both attacks come off quite quickly. Still, due to his low range, dodging them shouldn't be a problem... as long as you got the space to do so, that is. You see, this boss will continuously walk toward you the whole fight and due to his large size, corner you against a wall and then smack you to oblivion. Although it IS possible to roll through him, his sheer size means that you have to do it from awfully close. The better is to unload everything you got and try to kill him before he can corner you. Just be sure not to combo him too much and to take breathers ; unlike the Fire Spirit, the Earth Spirit CAN break out of hit stun and counter-attack.

Naga
Fought: Stage 2-3 (Deep Grove)
Attacks:
-Sword Slash
-Strong Slash
-Acid Spit
-Shield Bash

What? No Arborick? Yep, this guy is the big boss instead and he's actually a great deal harder. Naga is the first really difficult boss on this version and is a MAJOR step-up from the two first elemental Spirit bosses.

This huge snake-like thing will start on elevated terrain and slowly move toward you, unleashing strong slash and acid spit attacks to keep you busy. The acid spit fire a single ball of acid toward you with relatively good aim ; be sure to jump AFTER the ball has been fired. The strong slash is the most threatening attack ; if it smacks you directly, it will deal major damage and if it strikes air, then it will cause an earthquake that will cause rocks to rain down at random. If that happens, roll repeatedly until the screen stop shaking to dodge all incoming rocks.

Now, just like the Earth Spirit, getting cornered is a bad thing... especially that the Naga does a LOT more damage and thus, can finish you off quickly if you allow it to. Now, there's three strategies to beat it.

Shield Breaker:
Notice what happens if you smack the shield? Those marks are not for show ; Spyro IS damaging the shield as he attacks! Now, your goal here is to break the shield. To do so, run up to Naga whenever he is not winding up for an attack and combo him up. Keep striking even when he's blocking but be sure not to do a longer combo than 4-5 hits ; if you strike Naga too much, he will counter with the Shield Bash attack, knocking you away from him and damaging you in the process. If you can manage to break the shield, get in close and infinite Naga to oblivion.

Hit & Run:
If you don't want to deal with the Shield Bash counter, you can choose to take advantage of Naga's recovery time after his sword slash attack. This strategy works only if you do not let Naga come off the high ledge at the beginning of the fight. Quite simply, duck at the base of the small hill and wait for Naga to use a sword slash attack. His sword will get stuck, allowing you to run up to him and combo him up. Do a full combo and then retreat back to the base of the hill ; if you strike him too much, he'll start blocking and if you're using this strategy, it's that you do not want to see the Shield Bash attack ; stop attacking and retreat. If Naga use the acid spit or strong slash attacks, jump over the former and roll through the latter as usual. Just be sure to stay at the base of the hill, ducking most of the time. Note that you might want to turn off the Slope Slide attack for this fight so Spyro doesn't start sliding rather than ducking in the middle of the fight.

Near-Infinite Combo:
This is the fastest but most risky tactic. Simply put, if you pull this one off correctly, you can finish off the boss without it doing a single move... but if you screw up, you'll be in a bad shape for the rest of the fight. Quite simply, run up to the boss at the start of the fight and bum-rush him ; do not let him attack at all. When he raise up the shield, stop attacking and wait for him to wind up for an attack. Immediately resume your assault and stop when the shield come up again. This strategy require lots of timing but once you can pull it off, you can finish off Naga effortlessly in under two minutes.

Overall, Naga is a difficult boss but if you pratice up and use the above strategies (which one is up to you), you should be able to overcome him.

Ice Spirit
Fought: Stage 3-2 (Ice Temple)
Attacks:
-Ice Cannons
-Low Punch

This boss is ridiculously overpowered offensively. From afar, this boss will rapid-fire ice bullets at you from its cannons at a low angle and when it gets in close, it will proceed to pummel you repeatedly with a fast and deadly punch. Dodging the first attack require jumping but due to the rapid-fire rate of fire, it's likely it won't do much good. Likewise, the low punch come a bit too quickly for you to evade it with any kind of consistency.

Sadly, this boss is a cheesy, cheap boss. The only reliable way to beat him is to come into the battle with as many health and magic upgrades as possible and an upgraded fire breath, if possible. The strategy is simple: get on one of the platforms and make short hops, trying your best to evade the ice bullets while countering with the fire breath. No matter what you do, you'll almost surely end up taking heavy damage on this one.

Don't feel ashamed if you get hopelessly stuck on this one and needs to reload in order to seek out more upgrades and/or experience for the fire breath. You wouldn't be the first one... especially on Hard mode.

Advisor (1)
Fought: Stage 3-1 (Airship Fellmuth)
Attacks:
-3 Hits Combo
-Shuriken Throw
-Multi Air Shuriken
-Dummy Teleport Counter
-Air Slash Teleport Counter

Yep, none of the console version's bosses are here for you to fight... but instead, you'll get THIS guy who is, in my opinion, infinitely cooler.

Yes, it's a Dark Grunt in a ninja outfit. No, it's not for show ; this guy is tough as nails and will hand you out your tail on the first few fights.

On this first fight, the Advisor will be relatively defensive. He'll mostly run and jump around randomly, not actively trying to hurt you. However, if you do happen to be in the way when he's running around, he WILL combo you up. His combos hurts, a LOT, so don't ever get close to him if you're not sure you will be the one to strike first.

The Advisor does sport a few fancy moves such two different counters but he'll seldom use them and the Dummy Counter will be easy to see coming ; if the boss disappear in a puff of smoke and leave a dummy behind, do NOT touch the dummy as it will explode upon impact. If you are near him when he jumps, he'll throw an arc of three shurikens at you and once in a while, he'll do a slow high jump before unleashing them. In both cases, you can either roll or position yourself in-between two shurikens to avoid damage. There's not much to do against the Air Slash Teleport Counter ; roll out of the way to avoid the incoming attack.

Oh and by the way, yes, it's quite cheap when he just randomly pull those shurikens out of nowhere while he's walking and pelt you with them. Learn to jump/roll in time and bear with it... or you could always whip out projectiles of your own and intercept his. Breath attacks will stop his shurikens. The shurikens do little damage though ; it may not be worth it, especially if you have lots of health, to waste magic on them.

Now that you know how to survive, how do you beat that guy out of his pyjamas? This is not too hard here surprisingly enough ; wait for him to start running back and forth aimlessly on the floor and surprise him by jumping/rolling behind him. Then, combo him up ; the Advisor is one of the sole foes that you can actually combo up normally. Take advantage of it! For maximum effectiveness, mix the ice breath into your combos ; the Advisor is actually vulnerable to it and will be slowed down, making your life a whole lot easier while it last.

The Advisor's fancy moves are a bit of a hassle but due to his easy to exploit pattern for this first fight, you should eventually conquer him.

Skabb
Fought: Stage 3-3 (Scavenger Airship Fleet)
Attacks:
-Charged Sword Slash
-Parrot Summon
-Treasure Chest Cannon
-Scavenger Pistol

You might recognize this bastard from the console version. He's still the stage 3 end boss. Fortunately, Skabb is nowhere near as hard on the GBA as on the Wii/PS2 but he still remain difficult. Be on your guard!

Skabb won't move for the whole duration of the fight ; he won't pursue you and the pace of his attacks are slow. However, his attacks are something special and Skabb is a block-whore ; you won't be able to land a single hit on him until you fulfill special conditions.

First of all, as mentionned before, Skabb has the finest blocking skills this side of the Dragon Land Realm ; attacking him in normal circumstances is a waste of time, effort, and breath energy. Unlike Naga, you cannot break him out of his blocking stance. In fact, if you keep attacking, Skabb will eventually get sick of you pummeling him and will charge up his sword with purple energy before delivering the mother of all downward slashes to you. This will, of course, knock a HUGE chunk off your health meter so be smart and don't attack him in normal circumstances.

Now, regarding his attacks, Skabb will use three of them. First, he can summon parrots that will follow you and try to smack you whenever they get the chance. They do little damage but once summoned they will be on your tail the whole time and won't let up until killed. Be sure to do so so that they won't distract you from what's Skabb is doing.

Skabb's second attack is to use his pistol. You'll know when he will use it because of the sound effect and the little spinning trick he'll do with the pîstol before firing it. Skabb's pistol is actually quite powerful and Skabb has frustratingly good accuracy ; be SURE to jump AFTER he has fired his pistol or else, he WILL hit you in mid-air.

Skabb's last attack is both his strongest and his Achille's heel. He will fire the cannon mounted into the treasure chest on top of his head. A flashing warning symbol will appear at the top of the screen to show where the cannonball will fall and then, it will fall and cause an explosion. The cannonballs are Skabb's strongest attack alongside the charged sword slash ; be SURE not to be hit.

So, how do you beat Skabb? Well, notice how I said that the cannon was his weakness? Rather than just dodge the cannoballs, try and smack them in mid-air to send them flying. If you knock them back into Skabb, he will be stunned and become vulnerable to regular attacks! At this moment, get in close and go nuts on him. Be careful however! Skabb can still use the parrot summon attack when stunned and any parrots on-screen will take the opportunity to interrupt your combos if you let them live ; be sure to kill them all before attacking Skabb himself.

Overall, Skabb require patience and technique but you should eventually beat him.

Electricity Spirit
Fought: Stage 4-1 (Electricity Temple)
Attacks:
-Hyper Charge
-Thunder Sphere Summon

This is the final elemental Spirit boss. This fight has a very unique pace and might take you by surprise the first time you do so. This boss doesn't have the most varied offense around but believe that he CAN kill you if you're not careful and in under 10 seconds to boot... so no slacking off!

First of all, DO NOT run up to this boss when the fight begin. This boss has two modes between which it will altern. During the Hyper Charge, the Electricity Spirit will be super-charged with electricity and be invincible. DO NOT touch him ; if you do, you'll take MASSIVE damage and if he can multi-hit you, he'll kill you instantly. YIKES! So, take advantage of the boss's small size and low speed and run the heck away.

After a while, the boss will get sick of chasing after you and head to the center of the arena where it will turn blue. This is your chance to attack him!... but keep in mind that this is also the moment when he'll start to summon Thunder Spheres at an absolutely crazy rate ; within seconds, there will be twelve on your tail at least. Be SURE to eliminate them or else, they will overwhelm you and kill you in only a few seconds. Fortunately, Thunder Spheres tend to stack up so you shouldn't have much difficulty. Be sure to give yourself some breathing room after the boss has stopped summoning Thunder Spheres ; it's the signal that it will Hyper Charge itself again. If you're worried about the boss Hyper Charging itself while you combo it up, use the Earth Breath attack on it ; you can use it from the higher ledges to strike him from a safe distance and due to the elemental properties of the boss, it will do decent damage to it.

The pattern then loop on. A surprisingly simple attack pattern but still, as stated before, this boss can easily insta-kill you with both of its attacks so don't take this battle for granted!

Advisor (2)
Fought: Stage 4-3 (Celestial Temple Inner Sanctum)
Attacks:
-4 Hits Combo
-Shuriken Throw
-Multi Air Shuriken
-Dummy Teleport Counter
-Air Slash Teleport Counter

You already fought the Elemental Spirits early so it's a no-brainer that you won't see them here again. But, what's this? Rather than having a ghostly image of Cynder (AKA the Elemental Dragon) waiting for you at the end of the Celestial Temple, you have the Advisor!

This guy has been itchin' for a rematch and well, he's significantly tougher this time. This time around, the Advisor doesn't play around and will actively try to attack you, pursuing you accross the room. He also ditches the three hits karate combo for a more effective sword-based four hits combo. His attacks are essentially the same apart from that.

Still, this fight is much different due to the simple fact that the Advisor now seek to eliminate you rather than simply running back and forth aimlessly, throwing random attacks.

First of all, notice how the Advisor laugh at you after landing a successful attack. This wasn't much of a factor during the first fight since he aimlessly ran around anyway... but this time, due to the enemy pursuing you, approaching him may be difficult. One way to approach him is to con him into jumping after you and striking you with shurikens. Although it requires you to sacrifice health, you'll take a lot less damage than if the Advisor had unleashed a combo on you and he'll leave himself wide open for a counter-attack all the same.

If you want to beat him the fair way or simply doesn't have enough health to out-last him (which will most likely be the case on Hard mode) then there are some ways to approach him safely.

First of all, the Advisor, just like Spyro, has lag after missed attacks. If you jump toward him, gliding just over him, you will be likely to trigger his combo. While the Advisor is busy striking thin air, run up to him and smack him.

An alternate strategy is to take advantage of the fact that he only attack in the air when at the peak of his jumps. Lure him into trying to fight you in the air and use a tail swipe to knock him out of the air. Then, land near him and smack him when he get back up.

Try not to engage him in direct combat ; his combo is greatly damaging and if you strike first when he's idle, he will most likely counter with the Dummy Teleport or the Air Slash Teleport, both of which do decent damage.

Also, do not charge and attack him if he just stand there ; he's actually baiting you and he'll counter physical attacks by slashing you and breath attacks by teleporting and jumping. However, this is also a golden opportunity. The Advisor's suit is definitely warmer than last time since you cannot freeze him... but although he will usually dodge breath attacks, electric attacks are too fast for him to avoid. It won't make you win the battle but it will give you a few cheap shots on him once in a while.

All in all, this is a relatively difficult fight but if you made it this far, you can beat him.

Advisor (3)
Fought: Stage 5 (Temple of Souls)
Attacks:
-6 Hits Combo
-Shuriken Throw
-Multi Air Shuriken
-Dummy Teleport Counter
-Air Slash Teleport Counter

The final stage is very different from the console version, as you might have noticed. Namely, the first part of the final stage (Mountain of Malefor) is removed entirely ; you're sent directly to the Temple of Souls to face the game's final boss... or rather, in this version, final bossES.

Yep, it's the Advisor. Again.

Didn't you just fight him like, a few seconds earlier?

Actually, this fight is VERY different from the two last Advisor fights and is one heck of a brutal fight!

The first thing that you will notice is that the Advisor is no longer playing around at all. He will charge toward you with a single-minded fury unseen in most video game bosses, intend on turning you into a little purple heap of shattered bones. Namely, he will be on your tail the whole time and he will use all of his tricks to their fullest this time.

DON'T. TRY. TO. ENGAGE. HIM. DIRECTLY. Hope that was clear enough. If you have the misfortune of attempting direct physical combat, the Advisor will proceed to unleash a looooong 6 hits combo that will inflict an absolutely ludicrous amount of damage upon you ; even with all health upgrades, he can easily tear through a third of it with one combo. NOW that's serious damage! So, don't get close.

Another new point is that the Advisor will rapid-fire his shurikens from aside and his jumping speed is a LOT faster this time so he will be harder to nail. You will also notice that he will teleport around a lot, leaving dummies all over the place and constantly trying to land a downward slash on your head after teleporting.

There's not much you can do about avoiding damage here but you can still exploit his pattern. First of all, the jumping flaw remain although the high speed make it risky. Furthermore, he may use one of his two counters if you try to strike him in mid-air. Still, it will net you a few painless hits once in a while. Likewise, the glide/roll evasion tactic will not be so reliable anymore even if due to the fact that due to the Advisor's combo now being very long, he'll step very far away from his original location while executing it meaning that you may not have the time to smack him in the middle of said combo.

As you can guess, the Advisor won't stop to pose and taunt you this time so you will not be able to zap him this time. Likewise, his protection against ice carry over. So simply pick the breath attack you're most comfortable with ; he has no specific weakness this time.

So... considering all this, how do you beat up the ninja freak?

There's not a whole lot of ways around it ; be more aggressive than he is and lead the pace of the fight. Don't let him corner you and constantly harass him with your breath attacks. Keep jumping and rolling, forcing him to do awkward moves and trying to mess him up. If you can force him in a situation when he can't attack you easily and thus force him to run away from you without teleporting, you'll be able to close in and do attacks of your own. Once you get your hits in, try to corner the boss against a wall so that he may not be able to easily mount a counter-attack.

This fight IS difficult but eventually, you'll prevail if you keep at it.

King Gaul (1)
Fought: Stage 5 (Temple of Souls)
Attacks:
-Form 1-
-Crushing Body Blow
-Earthquaker Blow

-Form 2-
-Crushing Body Blow
-Earthquaker Blow
-Downward Crushing Swipe

-Form 3-
-Crushing Body Blow
-Earthquaker Blow
-Downward Crushing Swipe
-Dark Sphere

-Form 4 (Hard mode-only)-
-Crushing Body Blow
-Earthquaker Blow
-Downward Crushing Swipe
-Dark Sphere

First of all... the game kick you out of the stage after you beat the Advisor for a reason. Revisit every stage and get everything you have missed: abilities, health & magic upgrades, and fill up your Fury meter. You will thank me later, believe me.

First of all, forget all about the surprisingly simplistic boss that awaited you at the end of the console version. The GBA version of Gaul is downright cruel and feature no less than three forms that you must defeat one after the other with no regeneration whatsoever between each. So... don't whine if you come unprepared and get your tail handed out to you! That warning above was there for a reason!

Now, due to the fact that Gaul has several forms, I'll divide this guide into sections for each form.

-FORM 1-
Once the fight begin, Gaul will start to tremble. No, he's not cold nor is he scared. Gaul is (thank goodness) kind enough to telegraph his attacks ; he'll start trembling whenever he's about to attack.

So, I suggest you hop on the Well of Souls and prepare yourself. Gaul has only one attack in the first part of the fight but frankly, that's all he needs ; he'll unleash a double downward punch that do decent damage but has short range. But the attack itself is not the main concern. Rather, what will worry you is the earthquake it will cause, making boulders fall from the ceiling. Like Fire Spirit's firestorm and Naga's Strong Slash attack, the projectiles summoned by this attack spawn at random locations and come down fast so you'll need to roll constantly to avoid them.

Once it's done, Gaul will either chain several Earthquaker Blows together or jump toward a random direction. If he attack again, keep rolling but if he jumps, here's your chance! Get close and melee him up! BE SURE to combo him up only ONCE however.

This apply to all forms: never, never, NEVER try to do more than one full combo on Gaul or else, he'll counter with the mother of all left body blows, sending you flying and removing a HUGE chunk off your health meter.

This first form has a simple pattern although the random rocks WILL pose problem. Keep smacking him and when his health meter is emptied, Gaul will point the Soul Gauntlet at the Well of Souls and suck tortured souls out of it, recharging himself with dark magic and refilling his health meter.

You should try to kill this form quickly to minimize damage from the rocks. DO NOT use the Fury mode on this form, keep it for later. If you're doing well, you shouldn't lose more than a fifth or a quarter of your health on this form. Keep at least three quarters of your magic, if possible.

-FORM 2-
Gaul changes strategy and will now become more aggressive. He'll fight in a way not unlike his first form in the console versions, doing series of high and low jumps while striking downward with his weird gauntlet weapons. Fortunately, he won't instant-kill you here. Unfortunately, he has killer timing and attacking him when he's jumping around is hazardous. Trying to avoid him might also prove difficult since Gaul is huge and can move relatively quickly ; your best bet of avoiding him are continuous double jumps.

Be SURE to keep Gaul on-screen or else, he'll do a long jump toward you and most likely net you in mid-air.

Once in a while, he'll stop and do the Earthquaker Blow attack. Dodge the rocks and take the opportunity to strike back! As usual, don't be greedy ; the Crushing Body Blow is painful.

After you empty his health meter again, he will power up one last time...

If you are doing well, you should clear this form with at least two thirds of your health left and half of your magic left. On Normal, you could use the Fury mode here but I recommend you keep it for form 3. Definitely do not use Fury mode on this form in Hard mode.

-FORM 3-
Gaul is now at full power and once again change strategy. He'll now play the coward card and jump to either of the corners of the room before shooting spheres of dark magic at you. The spheres do fairly large amounts of damage and have limited homing capabilities, making them a pain to dodge.

The first thing is to learn to dodge the dark spheres. If you try to dodge them from the ground, you'll have little success, especially if you're close enough for Gaul to be on-screen. Instead, stay on the Well of Souls and the statues. Double-jump above the dark spheres when they get close to you, about one time and a half the length of Spyro's body.

It's worth noting that your breath attacks will cancel out Gaul's Dark Spheres. However, since you will want to conserve magic for the purpose of attacking, it's best to use the breath attacks to intercept his projectiles only if you are sure that you cannot avoid a hit.

Keep dodging dark spheres and get closer to Gaul. If you manage to get close enough, interrupt his dark sphere shooting and melee him up! Be SURE to strike Gaul's body however ; your attacks go through his hand. As usual, be wary of his powerful counter-attack.

After you stopped attacking or that he smacked you with his Crushing Body Blow, Gaul will make a serie of jumps toward the other corner of the room. Gaul moves quickly ; you won't be able to catch up before he can resume firing at you. Still, sometimes, he'll stop in the middle of the room to unleash an Earthquaker Blow or make a few timid hops toward you to try to strike you with Downward Crushing Swipes. Remain evasive ; he just won't stay still and your best chance to attack is when he's charging up the Dark Spheres.

If you are on Normal, the fight ends here so now is the time to use the Fury mode.

However... if you're on Hard mode, Gaul will stick his Soul Gauntlet out and suck up one last bunch of tortured souls. I hope for you that you still have at least a third of your magic because that things are about to get rough.

-FORM 4 (Hard mode-only)-
First of all, congratulations on making it this far on Hard mode. That's not an easy feat at all! Still, you're not out of the woods yet, far from it!

This final form of Gaul has no new attacks but if you managed to keep the Fury mode, you'll definitely want to unleash it now. Gaul ditches the predictable pattern of form 3 for something more akin to the final Advisor's attack pattern.

In short, Gaul will become very aggressive and reveal his true speed. He will constantly jump toward you, trying to unleash Downward Crushing Swipes. After a while of trying to smack you, he'll retreat to one of the corners and chain up Earthquaker Blows and Dark Spheres in a rapid-fire fashion in an attempt to overwhelm you before unleashing one last Earthquaker Blow and jumping toward you to swipe at you in the middle of the attack.

Gaul is definitely fighting dirty this time and will leave very few openings. Due to this, physical attacks are always hazardous, period. Still, his Earthquaker Blow spamming has an advantage ; due to the increased amount of boulders, there will be more green gems being produced... which is how you will attack Gaul this time.

Take the breath you're most comfortable with (hopefully, it's fully upgraded) and unload everything you got on Gaul. Since this is the only way you can attack him without making yourself vulnerable, be sure to make your attacks connect so you don't waste magic.

If you run out of magic, you'll be in trouble ; you'll have to have to resort to trading hits with him, which is unlikely to end well unless you are close to full health. So don't waste your magic.

Yeah, Gaul is one heck of a boss but take heart! You're at the end of the game! With perseverence, memorization, and a bit of luck, you'll finally take him down!

King Gaul(2)
Fought: Stage 5 (Temple of Souls)
Attacks:
-Crushing Body Blow
-Earthquaker Blow
-Downward Crushing Swipe
-Dark Sphere

So, you finally beat Gaul, don't you? Oh! What's this? Spyro has absorbed the powers of the Well of Souls and became the reincarnation of the Dark Master!

First of all, don't worry at all. Unlike the console version Dark Master Spyro, who was fighting on equal ground with Gaul, this version of Dark Master Spyro overwhelm him by a very large margin.

In fact, you'll notice that in the GBA version, your health and magic recover automatically and you get a MAJOR upgrade in speed. Sweet!... however, no Fury mode. Oh well, guess that's the price for the trade-off.

Gaul will now fight identically to whatever form was the last one before Spyro transformed but Gaul is now hardly a threat in both forms. Only his Crushing Body Blow inflict sufficient damage to have a chance of killing you and even then, you can now infinite Gaul without him being able to break out of hit stun.

In the console version, the game ends after you have beaten Gaul... but on the GBA, you still have one last battle to fight...

Dark Army
Fought: Stage 5 (Temple of Souls)
Attacks:
-3 Hits combo

Well, this is it. The final battle.

The death of their king has GREATLY angered the Dark Ones and Dark Master or not, they're going to take you DOWN!

Namely, behold as a huge flood of Dark Ones fall from the ceiling and attempt to bum-rush you into oblivion.

You CAN lose this fight ; the foes come in fast and furious and won't let up until you either beat all of them or get yourself overwhelmed. However, compared to the King Gaul battle as regular Spyro, this is nothing.

The first thing to do is not lose your cool and make sure to keep your foes running. You now have the advantage in terms of speed and the sheer amount of power Dark Master Spyro wield allow you to insta-kill individual Dark Ones. Run back and forth, forcing foes to form clumps and then, charge into them to clear them off the screen.

DO NOT LET THEM SURROUND YOU. It would be greatly humiliating to make it past King Gaul and all the way to the last fight only to get yourself overwhelmed. Lead the pace and do not allow them to position themselves to attack. If you feel that the battle is not going well, use a double jump to get out of the way.

On Easy and Normal, you'll face a moderate amount of foes but on Hard, a LOT of foes will come pouring down from the ceiling and the flood will not let up for a signficantly longer while so on that mode, they'll actually give you a fair fight.

You will know that you're close to victory when the Dark Ones start attacking from above, using the statues and the Well of Souls as safe points from which they can drop down to catch you off-guard. This do increase the difficulty of the fight but if you remain aggressive and prevent them from surrounding you, victory will soon be yours.

Eventually, you will defeat the Dark Army thus winning the final battle (and by extension, the game).

Congratulations!

Now, enjoy the ending. You definitely deserved it (especially if you've been playing on Hard mode)!

Dark Ones? That was an idea I had for the Dark Master's soliders months ago. I posted it on this forum even.

Personally, I found the Naga battle pretty easy. >>;

You should post this over at gamefaqs as well. Very well stated.

Hey! That was an excellent FAQ! You should post that on Gamefaqs so many more people have access to this well written FAQ you took all this time to put together! WOW, good job and thanks!

Wow, great guide! Nice work! I loved the colorful commentary as well. Maybe you should submit this to GameFAQs or something.

WTF?!

Are these three guests the same? Because they're posting the exact same thought! <.<;

Lol, no, when I started reading the guide the other two posts weren't there, then I commented and only after the fact realized that 2 others had said the same thing. Now I just look stupid . I think it happened because all 3 of us were reading the guide at about the same time (Kris found it and e-mailed it to me) and didn't realize the others would have the same thought and post it at around the same time.

Well... your posts are only a few minutes apart...

Also, nice job on the descriptions! Especially Gaul, Zerodius!

We are all developers on the game project and sit a few feet apart from each other. LOL I didn't think all of us were going to do that. Funny.

Wow! Quite a few comments! Thank you for the comments.

Well, I'll definitely clean up the guide, squash a few typos (as well as add missing words), and then submit it.

Thanks for the input!

Oh and...

If any of you have suggestions or alternate strategies... feel free to submit them. I won't mind.

Well here's some extra tips then:

- You can destroy Gaul's shots and the Advisor's shurikens with breath attacks. You can use this to protect yourself from the shots while hitting the boss at the same time with good aim (particularly easy to do with a burst of flame from Level 3 Fire Breath).

- The first advisor fight, if you hit him with ice breath he will be too slow to attack and won't jump, meaning you can easily go up to him and smack him around. This won't work on the later fights.

- On the second advisor fight, he sometimes stops and goes into a pose with one hand on his sword and the other out in front of him, and if you get close he will slash you instantly, but if you try to shoot him he will dodge. However, Lightning breath is too fast for him to dodge, so you can shoot him with that to start a combo. This won't work on the third fight though, he'll dodge Lightning as well.

- If you have level 2 or 3 fire breath, the ice boss is actually pretty easy. Get up on a platform just above him, jump up and flame breath downward (by holding R so you get the flame stream, not tapping it). This will keep you above his attacks and flame breath rips through his health.

Thank you! Those are actually very useful tips (especially the one regarding the Gaul's Dark Sphere attack since dodging it is such a pain).

I'll add those tips to the guide and credit you for them.

EDIT:

My boss guide has been put into proper form and put on GameFAQs. It's mostly complete... except for a few things:

-alternate strategies, anyone?
-speed strategies (AKA special extra-risky strategies for experts wishing to kill the bosses as fast as possible)
-probably typos
-DOH! Sorry MJ ; forgot to include your note about how you can stop the Advisor in the middle of his tracks with electricity attacks during the second fight with him.

As far as strategies seem to go, I could at least end up chipping in with a basic routine concerning the Earth Spirit. What I found myself doing was going in, finding room for 1-3 melee attacks, then when he telegraphs either of his attacks, dodge-roll to the other side of the arena and quickly repeat the method. Somehow I found myself overcoming his Hard Mode routine on my first try with that method, and rarely ever did I take any damage either. O.o

Well, that is actually what I meant ; to defeat the Earth Spirit, you have to keep a constant offense (so he won't corner you) but take the time to pull out every few attacks so he doesn't hit you with his attacks (which do a lot of damage on Hard Mode).

Still, this guide is writen taken into account that the player isn't already used to the game... and well, compared to the Fire Spirit, which was pretty much a glorified red and yellow punching bag, the Earth Spirit is quite difficult.

He's not difficult by any mean... but he require basic skills, still.

do you got sprites

I really need to get the GBA version of this! This walkthrough made it sound a whole lot better than the console version.

It's seriously epic.