

As you likely guessed, the latter is useless here. You’ll have the firefighter outfit, the chess piece, and the Invisible Man. The next phase is rougher, because all three available costumes kind of blow. Using Aero Acrobat is the quickest, as that just means that you have to tap the game’s only button in mid-air near an eye and it’ll get auto-attacked. Lance has three giant eye things show up, so you likely already know what to do here. Whichever costumes you had on you will get replaced with Aero Acrobat, Air Cat, and Dusk Butterfly. It’ll knock you down and a cutscene will play. Then Lance will shoot a beam, but it’s not a real attack. You’ll be good to go here no matter what, unless you have no costume and you fail to jump over the shockwaves. In the initial part of his second phase, he will pound his fists and create shockwaves. As this game is still Japanese, he turns into a giant dragon and you need to beat him with the power of friendship. Just like every other boss in Balan Wonderworld, three strikes and Lance is out. Their stomps create shockwaves, so watch out. After you hit him a second time, the enemies he summons on the next wave will be different. After hitting him here, he’ll do the beam attack again. Lance will then show up, which leaves him vulnerable to attack. A tentacle will show up because Balan Wonderworld is a Japanese game. It gives you plenty of time to avoid damage. Fight the enemies, but keep an eye out for a purple aura on the ground that appears underneath you. After that, he’ll summon three waves of enemies. Just run around in a circle and they won’t hit you. If you manage to hit him, he’ll fire a series of beams at you. Suffice to say, you don’t want to jump on him. This can easily knock you off the platform. It’s worth mentioning that, if you hit him with a jump instead of a melee or ranged attack, knockback is applied.

Move left and right to avoid their attacks and keep your eyes on the one with the pink aura. You’ll be able to tell the real deal, because he’ll leave a pink trail, whereas the others have nothing of the sort. They then rocket toward you one after another. He calls forth four copies and stands amongst them. When phase one of the fight against Lance kicks off, you’ll have your first chance to hit him. The picture shows me bringing Aero Acrobat. Save for the ones that fire automatically, I mean. The Inky Painter costume works well, but any projectile will do, really. I’d suggest bringing anything with a ranged attack.

Upon approaching the door, you’ll be asked to choose what costumes to bring. As you’re no doubt aware, his name is Lance and that’s a terrible name for a villain. Once you clear all 12 of Balan Wonderworld‘s other bosses and collect enough Balan statues, the doorway to the final boss will appear. Trust me, you want to go about fighting this baddie a certain way. If you screw up, you’ll quickly find yourself stressed out, and not because you simply died. You know how every other boss has costume crystals and keys that spawn endlessly in the area? This one doesn’t have that! For this one, you effectively get three lives.

“ Balan Wonderworld‘s bosses are so easy that babies could probably beat them!” And you’re not wrong! For most of the game, at least.
