Part 13: Episode 13: Balkan Battle!

Today we'll go after Balkan, who I consider to be the hardest.

We can meet up with Balkan in the DOASys.



(By the way, the stats and levels on the hud are going to be wrong for some of these DOASys screenshots, since I captured the relevant info on bosses as I ran into them. It's kinda hard to get a boss to show up when you want him to.)



Balkan's a violent character. Even so, he looks this docile and bored as you're interviewing him. I get the feeling that the makeup got in the way of some of these peoples' enunciation.

Number Five - interviews - Balkan

(When you show up, Balkan says: )
Balkan: "Make it quick, buddy. I ain't got all day."

Number Five: "What Is: Perfect?"
Balkan: "It's Bunker Hill, D-Day, and Desert Storm all rolled into one. The biggest baddest battleground in history. And this time, Balkan is gonna win it all!"
Number Five: "Where Is: Perfect?"
Balkan: "It's ground zero. This is where it all hits the fan."

Number Five: "What Is: The Garden?"
Balkan: "It's where they bury the dead."
Number Five: "Where Is: The Garden?"
Balkan: "Look around."

Number Five: "Who Is: Perfect 1?"
Balkan: "He thinks he's the biggest warrior of all time. But he ain't yet me yet!"
Number Five: "Where Is: Perfect 1?"
Balkan: "I don't know. But when I find him, he's gonna be six feet under!"

Number Five: "Who Is: Balkan?
Balkan: "I am."
Number Five: "Where Is: Balkan?"
Balkan: "You're lookin' at him."

Number Five: "Who Is: Silva?"
Balkan: "Nobody that matters. She ain't got no future."
Number Five: "Where Is: Silva?"
Balkan: "She's been hangin' out in the forest. But she won't be hangin' out nowhere when I get through with her!"

Given how he obviously oversells himself, you'd expect him to be a pushover.

What other people say about Balkan

Only Goner and Picasso have anything to say about Balkan, which we heard earlier.

Picasso: Balkan? "He's some crazy crazy schizophrenic who's been trying to take take over the residential districts. Watch out for him for him. He's 8th in the Perfect order. So it would take a lot of power power to defeat him."
("Who is: Balkan?") Goner: "Balkan ranks 8th. He protects us from the silver one. He is our ruler."
("Where is: Balkan?") Goner: "The residential districts. He watches our homes at night."

When Goner talks about "the silver one", they're referring to Silva, a boss that outranks Balkan. Balkan and her seem to have a rivalry. That's as much as there is to it, though, there's no Oscar-worthy reveal for any more details.

Notice too, that Picasso and Goner say that Balkan is Rank 8. This is an error, because he's actually Rank 9!

Off to Balkan's Lair

Balkan hangs out in the northeast corner of the map (In the "residential districts").



We find the playground here. The game nags me the whole way about needing to kill Balkan, because every time any enemy in my vicinity is killed, the game assumes I did it. Killroys are killing a lot of Goners around me.



Balkan is going to be tough. It took me 5 from here to kill him.

The Battle of Balkan

Watch the Battle of Balkan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0Xm6IemWvs (In the video, I use Pushya, visible as a glowing purple blob effect, to jump backwards quickly in the arena)



Wuh-oh, the floor's giving out!



We fall through the low-polygon crack in the ground to face...



Balkan!

No problem, though. Let's just fire a few shots and...



Blam!

Alright! He's wincing in pain. That's a good sign, right?



No wait, he got back up. And hey, what's he doing?



He's splitting into two!?

This is why he sucks so much. He splits into smaller and smaller versions of himself (to a total of 8 or 16?). His shots don't seem to get any weaker when he does this, and some of the versions of himself take more shots than others. I don't have a great strategy for this fight, so I just run around trying not to draw too much fire.



Before too long, there are just Balkans all over the damn place.



We have to pick them off one at a time, and eventually...



We kill him, and he does his death dance in his static field.

I do take the huffman by running through his static field. This is enough to get the final bit of stats to max us out.



Without too much explanation, the game hurls us back up to the surface.

I'm sure there's probably a better way to kill Balkan. I've never really experimented with the single use items, for example. Using ICE (to freeze enemies in place) would have probably been a good idea.



Balkan's northeastern lair is cleaned off the map!

Let's head back to the lab!





We've maxed out our stats!

Surprisingly, although we've hit 100% on all our stats (and items, for that matter), the goons back at the lab had nothing to say to us, so it just dumps us in the stat screen. They're not easily impressed, it seems.

There's not much to do other than kill bosses and watch the storyline progress in the lab videos. Apparently we'll have to kill more bosses to trigger those videos, though. I really love those campy videos.

Next time: Two bosses!
* Silva? (Rank 8)
* Fly? (Rank 7)
* Riberto? (Rank 6)
* Chameleon? (Rank 5)
* Chance? (Rank 4)
The final three ranked characters (Loki, Raven, Perfect1) are unavailable to fight.

Have a preference? Cast a vote!