You’ve been harassed by this machine for several zones, and the time for a showdown is finally here! This fight is a challenge, and the Diggernaut’s attacks hit hard, so play defensively and take your time. The fight plays out more like an obstacle course than a breakneck, pulse-pounding, reflexive battle to the death. Its attacks aren’t hard to dodge if you stay cool and collected.
Damaging the Diggernaut is likely the toughest part of the fight. Its head and the interiors of its grinder arms are its weak points, but it rarely brings its head to the foreground, and damaging its head is the only way to get it to set its grinders in a place where you can damage them. There is a right time to strike, but for now, focus on each of the Diggernaut’s attacks.
Phase 1
The Diggernaut puts both arms into the foreground and drags them across the room. The bottom arm stays stationary, while the top arm moves up and down. The Diggernaut can do this up to three times before stopping. It’s not a hard move to avoid. Wait until the upper arm is near the top of the room, then jump between them. Repeat this for every pass the arms make across the room.
When the Diggernaut pulls its arms close to its chest in the background, start Space Jumping. It shoves them forcefully into the foreground and quickly draws them to the walls, then back to the center—rinse, repeat. If you’re above them, you’re safe. If not, well…those grinders are more than mere decoration.
After you dodge enough of the Diggernaut’s attacks, it takes a more direct approach. It brings its head into the foreground and begins spinning a laser around the room. This is your opportunity to deal damage. Let fly a volley of Super Missiles directly on the boss’s head, but do so while avoiding the laser. Follow the laser around the head by Space Jumping, unload Super Missiles, and repeat. Avoiding the attack isn’t too difficult, but you can still take a hit if you get carried away with the attack. Remember, patience is key with this boss.
Once you deal enough damage to the Diggernaut’s head, it doubles over and places its grinder arms near both walls of the room. This is another chance to deal damage. Pick a grinder and wait near it. The individual segments of the grinder rotate; when a segment with “up” arrows faces your direction, that’s a sign that you can Spider Ball on that segment. Take care climbing up these arrow segments. Touch anything but these segments, and you get knocked off of the grinder altogether.
Your goal is to reach the top, then drop into the center of the grinder. Wait for the center to be cleared before dropping in. Be patient. When an opening appears, drop into the center and place a Bomb. This sends a short circuit directly to the Diggernaut’s core processor. You have to repeat this method with the other grinder, but first, deal enough damage to its head to get it to put the grinder back into the foreground.
Phase 2
Destroying the first grinder starts up the next phase of the fight. The Diggernaut alters its existing moves to be deadlier and adds a slew of new attacks into the mix. Be ready, because the fight gets tougher from here.
If the Diggernaut jams its grinders into the ceiling in the background, aim straight up and start firing. Bubbling purple acid rains continuously down from the ceiling in waves. The good news is that the bubbles aren’t difficult to destroy. The bad news is that the Diggernaut attempts to target you with a laser-guided laser beam. A targeting reticle slowly follows you around; if it locks on to your position, it stops and fires a beam at that location. The easiest way to avoid this attack while shooting the bubbles, though it might seem risky, is to stand still, fire until you hear the reticle beep, then move away from the reticle. You have a second or two to act before the laser beam fires, so let the beep be your cue that the reticle has stopped and that you need to step away.
The attack to be extremely careful with is the Diggernaut’s wind vortex. Ripples swelling around the Diggernaut’s chest signal this attack. Shortly after, a giant tornado pours from the Diggernaut’s chest and into the foreground, where it sweeps back and forth across the room. Getting caught in this vortex is devastating to your health bar.
This attack is easy to avoid: Spider Ball up to one of the upper areas of the room, or Space Jump over the vortex. The catch is that you can damage the Diggernaut during its wind vortex—you need to near the end of the fight—and doing so puts you at risk of getting sucked into the vortex.
While the vortex is sweeping the room, get slightly ahead of it and leave a trail of Bombs in its path. The vortex sucks up the Bombs and delivers them right to the Diggernaut’s core. Don’t overcommit! Once the vortex passes the halfway point of the room, jump and Spider Ball onto the wall. Repeat this process until either the Diggernaut falls over or the vortex stops.
After some time, the Diggernaut sticks its head into the foreground and begins its laser attack once more. This time, however, three lasers spin around the stream, instead of a single laser covering the room’s length.
The same strategy applies here: pummel the Diggernaut’s head with Super Missiles and avoid the lasers.
Deal enough damage and the Diggernaut drops its grinders again. You must climb and bomb the core of the grinder you didn’t bomb last time, but this time climbing is a lot more difficult. Making it up safely requires extra care and patience. This climb is much slower, so a mistake could cost you a chance at bombing the core. You have enough time to bomb the grinder if you move carefully.
Phase 3
Once both grinders are destroyed, the Diggernaut stops sticking its head into the foreground. That leaves one method for damaging it: get it to suck up Bombs with the wind vortex. Before you turn your attention to dealing damage, though, it’s a good idea to prepare for the two new attacks the Diggernaut brings to the table with this phase.
The Diggernaut lifts its grinders into the air, then brings them down hard in the foreground, creating a ground-based shockwave in the process. Getting hit by either the grinder or the shockwave deals substantial damage, so avoid both. The Diggernaut brings its grinders down three times: once with both grinders in the middle, again with them slightly spread out, then a third time right by the room’s walls. Wait for it to lift its grinders the second or third time, then run under them and make your way to the center of the room. You’re safe in the center, as long as you jump whenever the shockwaves reach your location.
Its final move involves shooting out eight lasers in fixed patterns and bringing them into the center of the room in an attempt to slice you to ribbons. The patterns are always the same:
Four lasers on each side of the room slowly move horizontally toward the center.
Once the first pattern reaches the room’s center, the lasers split into pairs and move across the top and bottom.
The final pattern is nearly the same as the first, but with a clear difference: the top laser of each set now covers the top of the room. Be extra careful when jumping between the lasers this time. Once you avoid this pattern, the attack ends.
Damaging the Diggernaut enough during the wind vortex attack causes it to bring its head into the foreground again, this time sans laser. Its head is electrified when it first extends forward, so wait a moment. Your job is to Spider Ball onto its head and bomb the three purple panels that line the outside track. Wait until the blue lines all align before planting a Bomb. Once they’re aligned and the Bomb blows, an electric current is sent straight into the Diggernaut’s red eye. Do this for all three purple panels to finish off the boss. You likely can’t get all three in one try, so be ready to repeat this process two or three times.