Fool

Fool
Basic information
Featured in	The House of the Dead III
Encounters	THoTD 3 - Chapter determinant, located in the DBR Institute/EFI Genome Ward
Weapon	Sharp claws, corpses
Protection	Furry Skin

The Fool (Type 0028/Tarot No. 0) is a boss featured in The House of the Dead III. Depending on which path you take, Sun, Fool, and Death will all appear as bosses, but in different orders. The Fool is presented as a giant, deformed, carnivorous sloth, which lives in a cage and eats human corpses. It is an expert climber, and it attacks the player with its sharp claws and rattles its cage to drop corpses on them. It must be defeated by shooting its paws, gradually weakening its climbing capabilities, until it is forced to resort to leaping across the bars of its cage towards the player. At this point, shooting its last good paw will cause it to stumble, lose its grip, and fall into the black abyss of the cage (satisfyingly banging its head and body several times on the way to the bottom of its lair.) If the Fool is the last of the first 3 bosses to be defeated, and the player does well throughout the game, a mysterious man will appear in the ending to retrieve an equally mysterious vial from the site of the final battle.

The Fool is encountered in the EFI Genome Ward (or DBR Institute) level.

Bestiary Overview

The formula injected within the animal greatly enhances the creature's growth, transforming it into a ravenous killing machine. It still acts as a sloth, but has an increase in it's speed. Perhaps the reason for its speed is that the formula must have changed the creature's choice of diet, resulting in the craving for flesh and blood instead of eating plant life like normal sloths. It heavily relies on its paws, which have elongated and sharp claws that help the creature to grasp cages and slash its victims. The paws are also the creature's weakpoints, due to the fact they aid it in climbing and when harmed, affect the beast's progress, causing it to be hurt and fall.

Combat

There is a total of 6 sequences to how the Fool will attack.

The first method is it generally crawl-charging towards players, the front claw closest being the one which will be used to attack. Aim for it and pump lead in hard before it has a chance to get close. This continues again before Fool's attack run will stop.

There will be a few seconds lull, before Fool decides to use one claw to climb-leap towards players and its foot claw will be used to foot-scratch. This claw moves more rapidly so act fast to prevent getting attacked.

Just after it is defeated, it growls, then rattles the entire cage players are in, before bodies are then dropped. Quickly shoot them all down, before they do killer-litter damage.

Fool will now use another arm and do cross climbing. In this attack, the claw to shoot will be in heavy alternating motion with its other claw, so its pretty easy to miss. Follow as much as possible and shoot it as accurately. If it manages to get close, it will be too late to stop a slash attack, before the cycle repeats until it has been drained of health.

Once again, Fool will rattle the cage, and bodies will fall. Like before, shoot them all down.

Fool's final attack will have it charging itself up, before making a great leap towards players attempting a slash. To counter, quickly shoot down the claw which will be used for attack, while mid-air. This is the hardest claw to target, yet it is the weakest claw, health-wise. One full round can take it out, else it will cause pain.

When Fool is defeated at last, it winces in pain, before letting go of the cage and falling down into the unseen bottom, hitting and colliding with the girders and support beams as it descends.

Lisa: Had enough yet? (pumps shotgun)

Trivia

• Fool is believed to be a giant deformed sloth.
• If one were to look closely, one can see that when Fool chases you in the boss battle he passes through the stair support beams.
• Fool drops corpses (supposedly shaken loose from hooks) onto G and Lisa during the battle, but the cage you fight him in has no roof.
• The boss battle with Fool is the only battle in game where a green crosshair is present to indicate its weak spots; its claws. It is present supposedly so that players do not get confused over which claw is the one to weaken per sequence.