I wound up abusing a glitch to get through the last phase but only because the fight itself is clearly bugged

Let me tell you about this boss fight. It’s fucking miserable.

Knautilus 103% Walkthrough - Donkey Kong Country 3: ...

So we start with you in the foreground and K. Rool hovering around in the background.

Also in the background is a cannon that shoots fireballs into the foreground. However, the fireballs always hit the same four spots, with plenty of safe room in between, and always in the same sequence, so this is no threat at all. Literally you can just stand in the middle and never get hit.

A metal keg will spawn in the arena with you at some point. Once the cannon finishes firing, something in the ceiling will start sucking. Throw the keg into that and it’ll be transported into the background, to be dropped on K. Rool’s head.

Well. That’s the theory anyway.

Problems: he’s moving back and forth in the background so you have to get the timing right. This is made tricky by the fact that if your throw up into the sucky thing isn’t exact, the timing on how long it’ll take to get sucked in will be variable.

Worse: K. Rool is invulnerable to all threats both physical and magical. The only way to do damage is to hit his dinky little propeller backpack.

So often what will happen is that you drop a keg directly on his forehead and it does nothing. Infuriating.

Once you’ve hit him this way, he comes into the foreground and starts hovering back and forth. This looks lame as hell, even compared with his run from DKC1, but is also very non-threatening because there are platforms on the left and right of the arena you can jump up onto and be completely safe

You need to hit him in the backpack two more times. This can also be annoying, because any time you can hit his back he’s moving away from you, and Dixie’s throw arc in particular has a lot of trouble reaching.

Then he goes back into the background and the first mechanic repeats again. Twice.

Then he repeats it again, but with the ground moving back and forth as a conveyor belt. This makes it a little more annoying but not really any more difficult.

The. The fight enters its third and final phase. K. Rool is back in the foreground, hovering above you. The electrodes on the sides of the arena are shooting out electricity; the top one boxes you in so you can’t jump, and then the bottom one shoots out a projectile that can’t be avoided.

What you need to do is position yourself with the keg between you and the projectile. The keg will absorb the projectile and turn the electricity off. Then you can grab the keg and throw it up at K. Rool’s backpack once again.

This repeats twice, and then twice again with the conveyor belt ground going, and then you’re done.

Problem number one: everything until the last phase is boring as shit.

And also, very frustrating, because of difficulties hitting K. Rool’s backpack with the barrel.

The combination of tight timing and absolutely no threat make this one of the dullest experiences I’ve ever had.

Problem number two: the hitboxes are wonky as fuck, especially in the last phase. Dixie in particular has a really hard time getting the keg high enough to hit the backpack without also hitting invisible hit boxes in the ceiling.

Problem number three: the last phase is bugged to shit.

If you throw the keg and miss K. Rool’s back, it’s supposed to despawn the keg so you can have it again in time for the next electric projectile.

Maybe if you totally whiff it in an upwards arc you could start it rolling but most surfaces on K. Rool and the ceiling will kill the keg.

Except that, totally at random, sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes the keg starts rolling instead. And when that happens, you are just fucked. There is nothing you can do to recover the situation, you WILL get hit by the next projectile.

The keg will not be back in time to help you.

Same if you happen to accidentally pick it up at the wrong time, meaning you need to spend the last phase walking instead of running.

Fortunately, the fight is glitched in a different way; if you pause the game while the projectile is in motion, it will keep going on screen instead of pausing. It can’t interact with anything when it’s paused so by abusing the pause button you can nullify the projectiles.

I only used this for cases where the roll bug happened.

So yeah, it’s like, tedious, unfun, buggy, janky, piece of shit fight. Do not recommend.