Boss Download: http://acmlm.kafuka.org/uploader/index.php?act=viewcat&id=25
Video Music: Lucre by Redg of OverClocked Remix http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR03362
This boss certainly takes the prize for having the most phases of any boss covered so far. The fight starts with an abstract version of a ‘sun’ attacking you and this is actually one of the harder phases, at least for the first half of the fight. The sun has plenty of attacks, but it generally likes to send out waves upon waves of bullets to overwhelm you. After the sun comes the moon and its attacks are generally slower, but require much more precision and planning as it tries to trap you with one attack and hit you with another. The third phase of the fight has the sun and moon fighting together and is likely the hardest part of the ‘normal’ version of this boss. The moon swings like a pendulum from the bottom of the sun, significantly decreasing the area you have for moving around safely. The sun will shower down hundreds of small bullets, but the real threat comes from the moon as it will periodically shoot out a barrage of deadly lasers which are difficult to avoid due to how close it is. You need to shoot the sun during this phase, which is quite easy to do because the sun itself doesn’t move and the moon doesn’t get in the way so you can focus entirely upon dodging. The fourth, and normally final, phase of the fight is actually the easiest. For this phase the moon will move to the center of the screen and the sun will slowly rotate around it. The moon sends out waves of bullets which have a very narrow amount of space between them in which to dodge. These bullets wouldn’t be a problem on their own, but you need to also quickly rotate around the moon while dodging between them because the sun shoots out a continuous stream of lasers which will kill you on contact and the only thing stopping them is the moon itself so you never want to be anywhere near the sun. Like with the previous phase, the moon doesn’t move at all and the sun doesn’t get in the way so you can just focus entirely on dodging.
Though this fight normally ends after the fourth phase, there is an entire additional half if you set the rank to 24, which likely represents the number of hours in a day. At Rank 24 the sun and moon turn into more humanoid, alien forms and create a power vortex between them. This vortex is the weak point, but bullets constantly spiral towards it from the edge of the screen and the sun and moon themselves occasionally launch their own attacks. After this, the sun and moon merge into a humanoid warrior wielding the sun and moon as weapons. You need to shoot the warrior’s face, but the lance made out of the sun blocks shots and the boss itself teleports. Sometimes the boss disappears completely and the sun or moon in their ‘alien’ form will teleport around shooting various bullets. This phase is probably the longest and most difficult of the extra phases in large part because of how defensive it is. For the true grand finale, the boss turns into a pulsing diamond vortex of pure energy and the arena turns black and white. This final phase has a fantastic aesthetic and throws just about everything it can at you. These additional phases are quite hard and require a good amount of practice if you want to beat them without losing a life, but they all feel unique, creative, and balanced by ‘optional bullet hell boss standards’.