Did King possess the Blade to create a weapon that can defeat Ballos?

This is a probably wrong theory but I might as well share it.

Alright, what is the best weapon for defeating the final stage of Ballos? That's right, the Super Missile Launcher!

However, what's the 2nd best weapon for the final stage of Ballos? I would argue it's the level 3 Blade. I'd argue that the level 3 Blade is perfectly designed to take down Ballos.

In Ballos's final stage (Assuming you do not do the cheese strat to stand in his eye), he is protected by the eyes rotating around him. Half of them are invulnerable to damage, and you have to take down at last one of them to create a gap in order to deal damage to Ballos. This makes the level 3 Blade especially useful, as damaging one of his rotating eyes will cause the rest of Ballos to also be damaged, causing massive damage. While it's not as fast as using the missile launcher in his eye, it's still pretty damn fast. I've gotten <3 minutes in the "Sanctuary Time Attack" mode using this strategy.

I think there's a decent argument that using the level 3 Blade is the "dev intended" way of defeating Ballos. Using the Missile Launcher in his eye is really effective, but one might consider that an exploit. I mean, the final stage has rotating eyes, Butes everywhere, rotating platforms that change direction, and all of that is skipped when using the Missile Launcher in eye strat. On the other hand, the Level 3 Blade is uniquely suited to that specific fight due to the way it works.

With all of that established: I find it very interesting that the one weapon that is uniquely capable of beating the last stage of the last boss happens to be the one possessed by another character's spirit. Is is possible that King possessed the Blade in order to create a weapon that can defeat Ballos? The biggest issue of this theory is that King probably had no idea that Ballos even existed. I will say: it is possible that King knew about Ballos from Arthur or someone else before the game started. It's also possible that King ran into Jenka while in the Sand Zone. Jenka gives a bunch of lore about the island to Quote, who has amnesia and doesn't know anything about the island. When talking to King, someone who probably already knows what Jenka told Quote, it is possible that Jenka would taking with his about a more advanced topic, like Ballos and the treat he poses to the island. This would make it so that Ballos would be something on King's mind as he dies, which could make it so that when he possessed the Blade, it was in a way that could defeat Ballos.

What do you think? How insane am I?

 

Ah, King's scatter AoE. I think it's too coincidental for that to be the actual strategy, imo. For all we care, Pixel probably intended the Bubbler to be the actual method to defeat Fourth Stage Ballos, but the fact that it's a hidden weapon means people would've skipped it their first playthrough (I sure did). Ngl I thought I had to keep on spamming the spur to do it, and then I realized the super missile launcher was used in videos. Ah well, I have an average of 6-7 minutes in hell, I can't complain.

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...Unless it's Sacred Grounds - B2

Edit: I do feel this is a gray area that only Pixel will ever respond to with "I leave it to your imagination", but any character other than Quote, Curly, Balrog, Misery, and Jenka knowing about Ballos' existence is an interesting idea, let alone the existence of the Core.

 

Ah, King's scatter AoE. I think it's too coincidental for that to be the actual strategy, imo. For all we care, Pixel probably intended the Bubbler to be the actual method to defeat Fourth Stage Ballos

I feel it's too "coincidental" for it to NOT be the intended strategy. Ballos's final phase is perfect for King's Blade. Some people don't like the lvl 3 Blade and think the lvl 2/1 Blade is better. It's pretty situational, and while there are bosses where the level 3 Blade is effective, I think final stage Ballos might be the only one where it is so much better than the level 2 Blade. It seems pretty intentional to me.

Personally, I was able to figure out how effective the lvl 3 Blade was pretty quickly when doing Sanctuary Time Attack runs.

 

So, to answer the up-front question of what I think, I think this theory makes a lot of far-reaching assumptions, so I don't really buy it, especially given your acknowledged point that we have no reason to believe that King or any of the Mimigas even knew that Ballos existed.

But to a more broad point, examining gameplay mechanics in their non-exploit state can still be a useful endeavor in trying to understand the mind of the game designer, and sometimes reveal some deeper lore. I'll have to admit, I never really tried using the blade for Ballos' final form. Before I knew about the missile launcher right at the eye trick, my weapon of choice was the Spur. You could almost make the case that Ballos' final form was more designed with the Spur in mind, given that it can quickly clear away a bunch of enemies to give you a clear shot, and, if placed correctly between the flying eyes, can do much more damage to Ballos than even the best placed level 3 blade shot.

I feel as if this theory is kind of shaping the question to fit the answer.

 

I'll have to admit, I never really tried using the blade for Ballos' final form. Before I knew about the missile launcher right at the eye trick, my weapon of choice was the Spur. You could almost make the case that Ballos' final form was more designed with the Spur in mind, given that it can quickly clear away a bunch of enemies to give you a clear shot, and, if placed correctly between the flying eyes, can do much more damage to Ballos than even the best placed level 3 blade shot.

I just tested this out and to be honest the spur kinda sucks against final Ballos. You have to shoot his rotating eyes to damage him, and the eyes rotate away by the time you charge up another shot. Plus, charging a shot means you are not firing with Curly's nemesis, which with any other weapon would fire behind you and kill the Butes behind you. Honestly, while you can use the spur against final Ballos, it kinda seems like the fight is designed to counter the spur. And because you have to charge it up so much, it makes that strategy slow as shit. I like to speedrun Hell, so that's a big deal to me. In comparison, the level 3 Blade SHREDS through Ballos, it's ridiculous. I've used that Strat to get sub 3 minutes in the Sanctuary Time Attack mode

I feel as if this theory is kind of shaping the question to fit the answer.

You are 100% correct in this assessment, but this has been something that's been on my mind for a while and I had to share.

 

I just tested this out and to be honest the spur kinda sucks against final Ballos. You have to shoot his rotating eyes to damage him, and the eyes rotate away by the time you charge up another shot. Plus, charging a shot means you are not firing with Curly's nemesis, which with any other weapon would fire behind you and kill the Butes behind you. Honestly, while you can use the spur against final Ballos, it kinda seems like the fight is designed to counter the spur. And because you have to charge it up so much, it makes that strategy slow as shit. I like to speedrun Hell, so that's a big deal to me. In comparison, the level 3 Blade SHREDS through Ballos, it's ridiculous. I've used that Strat to get sub 3 minutes in the Sanctuary Time Attack mode

Point taken, it's been years since I played Cave Story, so you may very well be correct in your assessment that LVL 3 blade is the better tool for the job than the Spur. In any case, nothing wrong with using your imagination with this theory.