The Boss

This entire page contains **SPOILERS** for the Story Mode of *Just Shapes and Beats*. It is recommended to play the entirety of Story Mode before proceeding this page!

You have been warned.

The title of the page is **conjectural**. Besides internal references, patch notes, Discord emotes or its official PS4 avatars, there is no official, canon name.

*Are you looking for Boss Levels?*
*You might be looking for the other boss featured in Barracuda. Or the ghost-like boss featured in La Danse Macabre.*

## The Boss

### Introduced in

TUTORIAL
(Long Live The New Fresh, game-wise)
LOST CHAPTER (chronologically)

### Associated tracks

Long Live The New Fresh
New Game
*The Boss' Theme*
Final Boss
Annihilate (Original Mix)
Till It's Over
*Pursuit*

### Unlocked in lobby by

Get 15 Rank S (9, DJ form)
Get 30 Rank S (10, Guitar form)

"*I didn't design **THIS**! :(*"
— Damaged opening credit, Paradise world

***The* Boss** is the main antagonist of *Just Shapes & Beats*. It is a pink horned entity (or to a softer extent, a pink cyclops-cat) that causes mayhem throughout the land of Paradise by corrupting the so-called "Tree of Life" and splitting it into three different parts throughout the game's world. It was responsible for the creation of the Tower and battles the player in several different occasions.

## Appearance

Like all other obstacles and enemies throughout the game, the Boss, in most situations, is outlined in harmful pink, with no fill inside (though for the purposes of the wiki, it is colored black for clarity). Its initial form is typically seen having a circular head with an eye, two triangles above its head, which represent horns or cat ears, and two triangles below the eye, which represent sharp teeth. This includes lines which act as eyebrows. The Boss morphs into some other forms throughout the game.

If the background is other than black (which is done by modifying the game), it can be seen that the Boss also has a black outline after the pink outline.

### Initial Appearance

At the beginning of Long Live The New Fresh, the Boss starts out with most of its minimal features. A head, a little circle inside it as an eye and two horns or cat ears, akin to a basic cyclops appearance. Later, once the Boss powers up, it grows eyebrows and teeth, along with three round spikes on each side to act as arms, one round spike with a circle in the center at the end of each arm as hands, and three circles on each hand as fingers. During most of the level, the Boss has two arms. On some of its attacks, it grows two more to have four arms instead.

Empowered Appearance
Halfway in the Paradise world and during New Game, the Boss reappears with the same form as seen in the previous level. However, once the Boss consumes the triangles after the creation of the Tower, it changes to have two eyes, one bigger than the other, and five horns, three at the left and two at the right, three of which are smaller. Most of the time, its teeth in this form are bars that look like an evil grin instead of the two triangles. It retains the same arms that it had previously, though again, it has four arms.
The Boss constantly changes in multiple ways during its attacks, such as forming a ring of 12 round spikes surrounding it before it rolls clockwise on the screen. It then splits two parts of the circular head to make the jaw and head move while consuming its own hand. It also turns its own mouth into a cannon, complete with a tube and a muzzle, merges its eyes into one, and starts shooting out round spikes.

Royal Appearance
During most of the game after New Game, the Boss stays in its empowered form. This time, with four arms (the bottom pair of arms acting like legs), it plays a unique guitar not seen anywhere else in-game as it blares out its theme from massive speakers at the very top of the Tower. It is wearing a crown, which has a piece of the tree attached to it. While playing, it appears to have its eyes closed and its mouth shut, as only its two sharp teeth are visible. The Boss is also seen in this form earlier in the Island world, where it flies in while holding a piece of the tree, and then slams the piece into the volcano to corrupt it.
When the Boss makes another appearance in Final Boss, it retains its empowered appearance, with two eyes and a grin, but only has one horn or ear. The crown makes a brief appearance before being taken away by the corrupted plants to prevent the player from obtaining it. The Boss's second horn or ear appears again, before it begins to directly fight the player with its improved cannon form, firing a spread of three spectrum bars from three cannons.
After Final Boss, when the player begins turning the tree piece blue again, the Boss floats from off-screen, and grins. It intervenes by making its mouth into a horn mouth before blowing the player away. It then turns into its final form.

Final Appearance
The Boss directly impales the piece of the tree into its head, creating some small cracks and empowering itself even further. Its eyes turn black, and glowing pink dots appear in them. Its right eye grows, and then seems to "pop" and "bleeds" pink liquid, which seems to "wash" the mouth away. The same then happens to its left eye. The five horns or ears remain, however. The Boss begins glowing pink brightly. Giant round spikes appear, surrounding the screen and acting as "limbs" of the Boss's current form or something of the sort. Uniquely from the rest of the forms thus far, it appears to have a dark pink fill instead of a completely black one (at least used at all times rather briefly on certain attacks).
Durring Annihilate, not just the Boss's eyes "bleed", rather, the Boss seems to also "bleed" pink liquid from the rest of its head. Notably, this is the only time where the Boss is seen without its horns or ears. There is also no crack spot nor triangle on its forehead. The Boss transforms once again in the same level, getting brighter with cracks appearing.
Once the Boss transforms itself during the same level, it has a completely different appearance. The Boss itself is a nonagon instead of a perfect circle, splitting into two to form its head and jaw. This comes along with two triangles and two white outlined circles to act as eyes, seven triangles as teeth, two of which are longer than the rest, and 18 spikes around its body, alternating between short or tall spikes, and two circles at the middle, one on each side. It keeps the dark pink fill.
The Boss retains its final form appearance during Till It's Over, except that the player damages it until it's damaged beyond repair. It does make a return in the end credits, as it returns into its initial form, wearing headphones and using a DJ set.

Other Appearances
The Boss makes its appearance in the lobby menu initially using the DJ set when unlocked. If one manages to get the secret lobby challenge unlock in the game, the Boss's DJ set will be replaced by an electric guitar set seen in earlier story sequences.
The Boss retains its pre-royal or empowered appearance throughout the Lost Chapter, without any substantial differences.

## Introduction

### Boss Battle

The Boss is first introduced in Long Live The New Fresh, where it initially attacks the player with a spread of round spikes coming out from its head. It soon absorbs round spikes until it powers up, giving its core appearance. It grows arms and hands to combat the player, and eventually fires lasers from its eye, but in the end, The Boss's arms turn and point it, before punching it. The Boss explodes and shrinks shortly after.

Encounters
Paradise
After a "plant" slams into the triangle the square is guided by at the beginning of the game, impaling itself, the "plant" soon morphs into the Boss's arm and hand. The Boss makes its appearance shortly after. The Boss goes on a rampage after getting out of the cavern, as well as chasing both the friend and the player, beating a friendly plant with its punches along the way, damaging the opening credits text of the game with a laser it fires from its eye, before finally pulling the Tree of Life from the ground as it prepares to make it pink or evil.
The player, not willing to give up, confronts the Boss once again, which leads to the next Boss Level, New Game.

Boss Battle
Resuming in New Game, the Boss corrupts the Tree of Life by lunging the Tree to a corrupt surface. It later punches the Tree to shove it further. Once the Tree is completely in pink, the Boss floats up and retreats, as it watches the creation of the Tower. After a short while, it uses a piece of the Tree to pour out smaller triangles and consumes them in the process, giving its empowered appearance.
The Boss fights the player using a variety of attacks to combat the player once again. After waves of cannon attacks and many other varied attacks, it sucks up all of the squares and players at the end of the fight, turning into its cannon form and shooting them out to a location far away from it.
The player thought that their story was over, but it is just the beginning for them. In the process, the Boss reigns over the entire world as everything turns into what it had visioned, one location at a time.

Island
Likely after the events of Paradise and before the player rescues the Boat, the Boss somehow forms or creates a crown along with a triangle ontop of it. This triangle is actually a part of the tree. Both the crown and the piece of the tree symbolizes the Boss's reign and being the "boss" and king of its minions being stationed all over the entire world.
The Boss is briefly seen after both the player and the Boat reach the shore of the volcano, before Barracuda. The Boss flies in with a tree piece, and then slams the piece into the mouth of the Volcano, making it pink, before it floats back upwards to offscreen. Restoring the Tree will soon be one of the goals that the player needs to complete to save their world.

Volcano and Tower
After the player restores the first piece of the Tree and enters the Industry along with the Boat, the Boss is seen on top of the Tower, where it stands on massive speakers, rocking out with a pink guitar along with several lighting strikes. It is seemingly focused on playing the guitar, which blares out its theme. This same scene occurs again after the player rescues both the Helicopter and their friend and restores the second piece of the Tree, with slight differences.
The Boss (presumably) continues to play its guitar until the player completes all of the levels in Tower before proceeding to Final Boss.

Boss Battles
Final Boss
Halfway through Final Boss, the Boss appears, complete with its crown housing the last Corrupted Triangle. Six corrupted plants take its crown away, and the Boss transforms into its Triple Cannon form to combat the player, firing triple waves at them.
After a while, columns of corrupted plants reappear, as the Boss continues firing at the player. The Boss disappears for a while, as six corrupted plants jump and release circles of round spikes. The Boss then reappears by jumping back from the bottom, and using its two arms to scale the Tower.
The Boss chases the player up the Tower, as it continues to fire triple shots. After climbing for a while, it floats around, flailing its arms about, before resuming the chase, and climbs faster this time. As the corrupted plants stop appearing, the Boss, with nothing to clutch onto, flails its arms around, as it falls down and creates a shockwave, ending the level.

Post-Final Boss
The player wins the battle, reaches the top of the Tower, and wears the Boss's crown, turning it blue and beginning the process of purifying the last tree piece. However, the Boss comes back, and makes a surprise attack by turning its mouth into a horn mouth, blowing the player and the crown away. After blowing the player away, both of the Boss's eyes and all of its horns twitch wildly, as it reclaims the last Triangle, and impales its own head with it.
As a result of impaling itself with the last Triangle, its eyes go from white to black, with pink dots in the centers. Its right eye grows, and then bursts and begins bleeding a pink liquid. The liquid washes half of the mouth away, as if the mouth was just drawn on with chalk. The same happens to its left eye, removing the rest of its mouth. Centipedes descend from the sky, and the Boss sprouts two large, thorny appendages.
The Square moves up to the level beacon, and begins the true final battle with the Boss.

Annihilate (Original Mix)
The Boss's hideous new form borders the level with large thornballs, blood drips from its eye sockets, small thornballs are launched at the player, and it vibrates.
After a while, the large thornballs explode, as centipedes hatch from it. After a total of 11 thornballs have exploded, the Boss vibrates once again, as the centipedes move up and down. The Boss's main body descends, cracks apart, and hatches into a new form.
The Boss taunts the player, proclaiming that they have been destroyed. It then blasts a huge laser beam from its mouth, and assaults the player with varieties of attacks.
After the Boss unleashes six laser beams in a row, it borders the level with large thornballs once again, but this time, it continuously releases rings of thornballs, as centipedes hatch from the large thornballs again as well. Eventually, the large thornballs vibrate for one last time, and the centipedes come from all four directions to have their go at the player.
The thornballs bordering the level despawn, only for the boss to spawn rows of more thornballs from the sides of the level, forcing the player to go into its mouth, then crushes them between its jaws, shattering them into pieces.
The Square tries to revive itself, only for the Boss to slowly descend from the top of the screen and smash the Square into pieces once again with its head, preventing the revival.
The Helicopter, the Boat, and the Big Cube arrive to mourn their friend's death. The Helicopter smashes its hand on the ground, wanting the shattered Square to come back to life. The Boat splashes water onto their friend's shattered pieces, to no avail. The Big Cube picks up their friend's pieces, and cries.
However, the two Tree Triangles on the Big Cube's head sparkle, and the Big Cube knows what to do; use the triangles as defibrillators to revive the Square. The Square comes back to life, empowered, and ready for the final round against the Boss.

Till It's Over
The Square, now in a new and powerful form, confronts the Boss for the last time, changing from blue to green to golden and back to blue. The Boss responds by bordering the level with large thornballs once again, and the Boss's health bar appears at the bottom of the screen.
The Square begins to blast devastating golden lasers at the Boss, thinning down the large thornballs bordering the level, as no attacks from the Boss can harm the Square in this form at all.
The Boss's main body breaks down, as it responds by surrounding itself with a barrier of large thornballs, as it hopelessly releases rings of small thornballs to attack the Square, who is invincible in this state.
The Boss's body breaks down once more, as it forms a serpentine body and attempts to smash the player multiple times as it is unable to do anything more than that, releasing shockwaves as a result.
Eventually, the Square brings the Boss's HP down to zero, defeating it for once and for all.

Aftermath
The Boss's lifeless body cracks apart, spitting out the last Triangle. The three Triangles come together, restoring the Sun.
After the Sun comes back, the three Big Triangles form a spear, destroying the Tower that the Boss created. The land of Paradise is then purged of corruption, and the Tree of Life is restored. The Square and its three friends reunite, as the land is peaceful once again.
However, the Boss comes back to life, now back in its first form. It reaches down to grab something, puts what it grabbed on its head, and...

...Becomes a DJ and hosts a rave party, now wearing headphones. The plants, and the friends (minus the Square) all dance to the music, as the credits roll, and the game ends.

The Lost Chapter
The story rewinds back after completing to the point after the square has beaten Long Live The New Fresh, the Boss, now encased and trapped in a cyan circular prison, remains dormant. However, as the friend and later a bird cage (knocked out by the square), destroyed a platform with pink crystals underneath. The crystals drop onto the Boss's prison and break it apart, awakening it as it lets a roar of fury onto the square and its friends.
The Boss chases the square, attacking it by its eye laser and taking advantage of the cavern's rather hazardous environment to crush the player by the rocks. The Boss would then reach the square and their friends, but with the timely intervention of a spider, the Boss was crushed by the crystals above it, leaving its right arm in its place.
The Boss, while defeated, will eventually get its revenge on the square and its friends, but if it only knew what will happen next...

## Gallery

* Ingame
* Other

* The Boss' initial form, seen in Long Live The New Fresh
* Ditto, its base form from the same level
* The Boss' base form, seen in New Game
* The Boss' empowered form, during one of the story sequences
* The Boss' triple cannon form, seen in Final Boss
* The Boss' final form, seen in Annihilate and Till It's Over
* The Boss right before its final form.
* The Boss in its final form.
1/8

The Boss (background), along with a few others, that appears in the official Berzerk Studio greetings cardThe Boss (background), alongside other characters in the 1st anniversary pictureThe Boss, in one of the game's promotional artworks, also used for the wiki's spoiler headers

## Trivia

* The Boss is only referred as "*BOSS*" in its own HP bar during Till It's Over, "*JSB\_Boss*" as an emote in the official Berzerk Studio Discord Server and "*BOSS*" again in the game's internal files and references. It also appears as a Playstation 4 avatar named "*Boss*" as well as crowned variant of the Boss named "*New Game*".
* A fan-nickname that is commonly given to the Boss is "Blixer"; though it does not have any apparent meaning.
	+ Another common fan-nickname of the Boss is "Fresh". This is related to its debut during Long Live The New Fresh.
* Although the Boss has seemingly empty space in which the player can get 'inside', the player will get damaged regardless.
* According to game's artist Em, she refers to the Boss as depicted as a cat, especially in its earlier forms, as its triangles above its head are actually *cat ears* that can be mistaken for horns. It also has hands that resemble paws, further supporting this statement.
* As noted from the quote above the page, it is true that Lachhh did not design the Boss's appearance. The game's artist, Em, designed it.
* Prior to Update 1.6, the requirement of obtaining the Boss's guitar appearance requires all of the levels to be completed in an S rank (48 levels at the time), it was later reduced to 30 levels following the update.

## References

1. ↑ One example of a reference that is referred as BOSS is "*SFX\_HEX\_PARADISE\_BOSS\_PUNCH.wav* in "*paradise.manifest*", where the Boss punches a plant in the Paradise chapter.
2. ↑ Berzerk Studio Discord - Em's message. November 14, 2018
Em: "*But [it]'s adorable in a way, [it]'s a cat!*"
3. ↑ Berzerk Studio Discord - Em's message. November 15, 2018
Em: "*When Lach ask me to design a boss, I wanted [it] to be cute, so yeah, I think of cat ears*"

## External Links

* The Boss's profile avatar (PS4)
* The Boss's "New Game" profile avatar (PS4)