COCOON’s gameplay is primarily chill, relaxing, and no-pressure puzzle solving with very little depending on timing, but the exception to this is the game’s challenging boss fights. These come at the end of a level; beating them gives you access to a new ability to use with the orb you were just inside, and they’re way more challenging than the game’s usual fare.
If you’re struggling with these bosses, don’t worry. I’ve compiled every way to avoid their attacks and beat them back, as well as some extra strategies to go in with to ensure you get through these fights. Taking a single hit in these fights results in you getting sent back outside of this world, and the boss needs to be done from the start, so going in with some strategy is a good idea.
#1 – Moth Boss
- Location: Orange Orb
- Achievement: Pathfinder
- Load Percent: 16%
Mothra’s estranged sister is the first and, naturally, the most straightforward boss in the game. It’ll mainly be a case of avoiding her slow-moving dashes, remembering to shake off her attacks whenever she sends bugs at you, and plucking bombs from the ground to toss at her. It’s still under some pressure, though, mind you, so here’s a detailed guide on beating her.
Phase One
Dodge out of the way when she charges; if she shoots bugs at you, just quickly press the interact button to shake them off and then get ready to dodge again (or throw a bomb at them if you’re an absolute maverick.) Once you see a pillar of dust form from the ground, chase it down and interact with it to pull a bomb. Make sure you pick this up and throw it at her quickly because it disappears if she runs into it.
Phase Two
Once the second phase starts, move to one of the four corners, prepare to weave between spikes, and play Touhou. The spikes move slightly in the opposite direction before going full force the other way, so use that as your indication of when and where to move. Eventually, a bomb will spawn, and just like the previous phase, move to it when you can and throw it at her big weird dome shape.
This phase will only take a single hit to finish, and while that might excite you, it’s also the most dangerous phase, so play it slow and wait for your opportunity, then the boss is finally done. After that’s finished, leave through the portal that spawns and take your newly powered-up orange orb, which now comes with free visions of strange invisible platforms you can walk across.
#2 – Jellyfish Boss
Load Percent: 30%
This boss looks like some type of jellyfish (the creatures are gonna get more vague as we go on) and reminds me of the Water Wraith from Pikmin 2, somehow, I’ve never played Pikmin 2, and it doesn’t look like that at all, so I don’t know what my brain is on. Either way, this one dashes at you, grapples you, and has a gimmick where you create a water spout and fly to hit it.
Phase One
Once you head into the arena, grab the orb, then use the jet stream coming out of it to hover over the boss, interacting with the ball again to throw it down and deal damage. He’ll start hovering around the arena and charging you, and you need to use it to your advantage. One of the pillars will have a glowing orb inside and be glowing faintly orange; bait him into charging into it, then pull out the ball.
Now he’ll burrow underground while you’re holding it, throwing some enemies at you that you need to weave out of the way of. After that, hover over him as he plants into the ground and throw the orb at him. After this, he’ll summon more pillars and make them move, as well as more enemies, but the strategy is the same.
Phase Two
The boss will now start spinning like a Beyblade, busting down the newly erected walls in the arena. Now, the orb will spawn on the opposite side of you, so you need him to break down these walls while also being able to dodge out of the way so you don’t get hit. He’ll always move in a circle around the arena, so follow behind him and make sure you move out of the way if he ever gets close, and you should be fine.
Don’t be afraid to take this part slow; he’ll keep going for as long as you need. Once you’ve got the orb, he’ll do what is quite literally a Touhou-type bullet hell pattern, but luckily it’s pretty slow. If you feel like you might not make it to a gap, move to the edge of the arena and try to move inbetween shots; it’s not easy, but doable.
After that, you can slam the orb down on the boss again for a well-earned victory. Leave through the portal that just appeared out of nowhere and take your prize of a ball that lets you change the state of matter for specific platforms.
#3 – Hexalien Boss
Load Percent: 54%
This boss is a weird, abstract conglomeration of strange fleshy matter protected by a hard shell made of hexagons, and it is no identifiable creature, so I call it a hexalien. It’s mainly focused on slamming the ground and taking out the arena, forcing you to teleport around using the new orb you just got, which is, in fact, super cool.
Phase One
The first phase is incredibly self-explanatory; you’ll walk into the extremely menacing arena made out of the best shape, Hexagons, then have to pick up an orb, and after you pull it out, you will now warp to the purple dot on the opposite side of the arena whenever you interact with it.
Eventually, a little lightbulb-shaped thing will pop out of the ground, and you can warp into it to damage it. After a few hits, the Hexalien will congeal into a massive abomination of weird, disgusting hexagons and tentacles, spinning around the arena. You can’t outrun this attack, so just run in a circle and teleport whenever it gets near.
After a while of dodging, it’ll start spawning the lightbulb things again, and this time, you need to hit them with some good timing to ensure you don’t get steamrolled. Every so often, the boss will do a charge attack that lights up the hexagon it’s directly above and the one parallel to it, smashing down into it and temporarily destroying both of them.
This means you need to rely more on your teleport in this much tighter arena. It will also retaliate after being hit (and having its skin torn off and looking even more disgusting) by immediately trying to slam down on top of you and destroying the hexagon you were standing on, so get out of the way as soon as possible.
Phase Two
Now that you’ve damaged it enough that its weird glowing eye will pop out, it’ll transform the arena into sticky tentacle-covered surfaces that will slow you down immensely. This means for this entire next phase, you should only focus on moving when necessary, as teleporting will be a much faster option here.
It’ll keep spinning around the arena, retracting half the tentacles to clear up some space for when it destroys two of the hexagons, leaving you in a tricky situation where you must keep teleporting to avoid it. Make sure you’re on the edge between two hexagons whenever you can take a second and adjust your position.
Sometimes, you can get trapped on a slow one and get stuck dying because it decided to take out that hexagon. Be patient and be careful, then teleport onto the lightbulb thingy when the time is right to attack it yet again. Once he removes most of his shell, leaving a weird wavy pattern, he will get incredibly aggressive, taking out half the arena at a time.
Just keep playing carefully, watch what he’s doing, hit the lightbulb again, and you’ll be home free. Now, your prize for winning is seeing the world get taken over with a bunch of weird purple bulb things, but these things let you grab a new purple orb even if your current one is somewhere else, so that’s neat.
#4 – Crab Boss
Load Percent: 71%
This one is also no real, identifiable creature, but it looks mildly crustacean, so I’ve dubbed him the Giant Enemy Crab, and you can hit his weak point for massive damage. Namely, you must bait him into stepping on orange spots in the arena and not get stuck in the gross, fleshy tentacles that slow you down.
Phase One
Once you go through the incredibly cool cannon, prepare for a big fight in a massive, open arena. Most of it is covered in those tentacle things from the previous boss that slows you down, but there are a few spots you can stand on. Press the interact button once you’re on one of these glowy circles, and your orb will send you flying across the arena.
Use this flight to hit the crystals that have just descended from above. After that, stand on the center circle and fly into the boss’s amber-coated shell. After breaking it, you have unleashed the crab, and it’ll threateningly walk towards you, stomping the circles and making them coated in the slowing tentacles that prevent you from flying until you do something about it.
One of the glowing spots on the ground will start glowing orange at this point. Fly to it and bait it into stepping on it, where it will coat his leg in amber and keep it stunned in place for a bit, so you can use this opportunity to fly directly into that leg and deal damage. It’ll occasionally slam into the ground and cause a shockwave to ripple through the arena.
This is pretty easy to dodge, though, since all you have to do is fly over it while avoiding it. The only real trouble is when it does multiple simultaneously; in this case, try to find the spot where they overlap and fly over that if you can manage, but taking a pitstop in between them works, too, if you have enough space.
Phase Two
Once it’s at one leg left, it’ll pogo around the arena, and given how many glowing spots are gone, this can get pretty hard. Try your best to fly as far away from it as possible, but remember that being stuck on a glowing spot close to it is better than being stuck in the tentacles, unable to fly anywhere else.
I got caught a few times by just trying to get away from him, landing in the tentacles, and having him stomp on me. In short, prioritize the glowing spots at all costs. Once you hit his leg just once more, though, you’re home free, and the boss is over.
Funnily enough, while taking a screenshot for this article, I found out that him slamming into you while you’re on an orange glowing spot will not kill you but instead make you fly away a bit. It’s less efficient than flying to a nearby glowing spot, but if you want to do it because it’s funny, go ahead. Now leave the arena through the platform that just appeared, and take your prize, an orb that works like a gun.
Questions and Answers
Question: How many bosses are in COCOON?
Answer: The game lists five bosses, but there are only four ones that are fought in a standard way, with the fifth boss taking three encounters to beat, each using a strange gimmick.
Question: How do I beat the Hexagon boss in COCOON?
Answer: Keep moving as much as you can, and when it restricts your movement, use the teleport more often to get out of the way of its attacks.
Question: How do I replay boss fights in COCOON?
Answer: When you hit load, either on the title screen or in the settings, you can use any unique icons on the dial to get put right before a boss fight.
Conclusion
COCOON’s bosses surprised me. I expected them to be like the few bosses from the Portal franchise, mainly just spectacle over challenge with a bit of puzzle-solving under pressure. Still, COCOON’s bosses took actual skill that I haven’t seen demanded of me in a puzzle game for a long time.
This was especially apparent with the Hexalien and Moth, the former making me think carefully about my movement and having to keep track of two of me simultaneously. The latter makes me navigate through a bunch of moving spikes to try and grab a bomb. The amount of depth they squeezed out of a single-button puzzler is wild, and I love it.
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