Part 19: Malus, the Last Colossus

Blip - With commentary (Polsy) | No commentary (Polsy)
Youtube - With commentary Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Malus' location on the map: F-8

Artwork/Pictures -
Malus Centerfold, left page (Artbook)
Malus Centerfold, right page (Artbook)
Malus (Artbook)
Malus (Artbook)
Malus (Concept art)
Malus' Lair (Concept art)

Dormin's Hints -
 "There should be a place where thee can approach whilst hiding..." 
 "Its response will be thy road..." 
 "Thou cannot reach its vitals in the place where thou art..." 

Notes -
- Malus is  a human! Most likely a mage or warlock, given the robe-like garment on his lower body. He is around 195 feet (60m) tall. When it comes to height, he is the tallest. Length goes to Phalanx, o'course! Still, I'd wager that he's by far the heaviest of the colossi. He doesn't even move!  

- Malus is Latin for a number of things, one of which being  "evil". It's a nice foil to Valus, the first colossus, whose name could translate to light/good. 

- His title translates to something a bit obscure. Basically  "Grandis Supernus" means "The Greatest" and "Eternally Above". Piecing that together, I went with "The Almighty". I think it fits okay  

- Watch the ending before reading this one!  He's a rather poetic final boss in that he is the most distinctively humanoid colossus of them all. Every colossus with "arms" and "legs" akin to a human thus far has been part bull or something similar. Malus is definitely a human. Anyhow, Wander slaying the final colossus, who resembles a human the most, is symbolic of him killing the last bit of his humanity, allowing Dormin to fully overtake his body as a vessel. 

- Note his location on the map. F-8 => F-EIGHT => FATE.

-  His projectiles are pretty tricky to dodge. They actually can curve to home in on you, so if you are a bit too early (like I was in the beginning of the fight), he'll clip you. 

- Hey! What's with all these edits, Geop? Well, let me lay it out for ya, good sir/madam:  Malus is tricky. His head is small, he moves around a lot (particularly on hard mode), and his seal is pretty hard to damage. I fell off of him twice in this recording, but caught myself on his outfit both times. What I removed, for the most part, was resting/recovering of grip gauge (which was very tedious, trust me). The initial trip to his head from his shoulder is left in tact, as is the final one. I left the first one in because I was being an idget and had a ton of close calls. After that, I became reeaaally conservative in regard to my approach. The method I show at the very end is what lots of folks do in order to take him down. He doesn't allow much time on hard mode, but stabbing his shoulder weak-spot will give you a few moments for a breather (which is what I did most of the way). Folks recommend stabbing/shooting it, running up, and doing a jump-stab on his noggin when he's still, but the time window is VERY small (and my jump-stab is far from perfect. See: Dirge). I didn't want to risk screwing up and falling to my death. Trust me when I say this: if you hit the ground, you are toast. Malus subscribes to the "double-tap" approach with his projectile blast As soon as you plop on the ground, he'll double-shot and kill you. Then you start waaaay at the beginning.

So, yeah. I played him rather conservative-like, and I apologize for that. It just came down to my skill-level (and the fact that I hate this guy the most. More than Argus) in conjunction with my impatience for this jerk-faced guy. Anyhow, I tried my best to match the camera-angle on the fades/edits.