Close To Me

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!

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## CLOSE TO MEbySabrepulse

Saw attack
"*When I hold you baaaby...*"

### World

INDUSTRY

**Close To Me** is the twentieth level of *Just Shapes & Beats*. It is the fifth boss battle of the game and the last level in the Industry world. Close To Me is preceded by Unlocked and succeeded by Into The Zone. This level is playable in Story Mode after completing The Lunar Whale, Spectra, and Unlocked in any order. It is a boss encounter against a corrupted version of the Big Cube, who is turning against the player(s).

*It's trying to say something* achievement will be unlocked after completing the level once. This achievement is only obtainable in Story Mode.

## Description

*Close To Me* features the Big Cube as the level's boss, using a variety of attacks that rely on the player to be either close or on the Big Cube's current form in order to avoid getting damaged. Throughout the battle and after the first phase, the Big Cube randomly chooses 3 attacks between phases, making the layout easy to memorize later on. The Big Cube attacks the player with saws, lasers, and gears.

The boss battle lasts around 3 minutes and 40 seconds before the track ends.

## Story Sequence

Without much time to waste, the square hurriedly reaches to its close friend, after the machine started to corrupt it. The pink circle below the friend starts the boss battle, *Close To Me*.
Once the player completes the level, a triangle purifies the second part of the Tree and destroys the machine that had corrupt the friend. After that, the second part of the tree drops down to the friend as it saves it and prevents other plants from being corrupted. All of the square's allies including the Helicopter celebrated for a short while until corrupted plants see this moment and retreat to the Tower. This is the transition to the fifth chapter of the game's story mode: Tower.

## Layout

First Phase
The level starts off with the Big Cube slowly starting to flicker and grow into its pink, corrupt form, harmful tears start expelling out of the Big Cube and falls down after at the middle of the screen. Later, a two-sided beam starts to appear at the Big Cube and rotate clockwise. One-by-one, another beam will spawn after the next, up to a maximum of four.
Then the beams will get thicker and spin faster, in order of formation (the first one formed is the first one that thickens). Around 45 seconds of the level, after all of the beams are empowered, round spikes start to rise up from the bottom of the screen.
Followed shortly, the Big Cube extends two arms with claws as their hands and pulls up a horizontal wall from the bottom along with two saws on each side blocking the topside of the screen, after which they fall off, including the wall. The Big Cube now begins to attack the player by its corrupted form.

Attacks

In between phases, the Big Cube chooses one of three attacks. It will not use the same attack twice until the Big Cube attacks the player three times, from there, it will attack the player using one attack that is scripted in this level. The Big Cube will alternate between an attack phase, using one of the three attacks below, and a shuffle phase, where the face quickly changes before "locking" to the face of the next attack while four rotating two-way lasers are fired from the Big Cube.
The first "verse" will start with an attack unlike the other two, which start with shuffles. It will also forcefully choose a modified claw attack, then a gear attack, then either another claw attack or a sawblade attack, then whichever one of the two wasn't used. For the first shuffle of each "verse", the lasers also spin slower.
* The Big Cube extends two arms with claws and pulls up a horizontal wall from the bottom while two sawblades from both sides block the topside of the screen, although this attack is slightly different than the one it was used the first time, as in later uses, the Big Cube slams down at the bottom of the screen, creating a shockwave and the sequence is initially slightly faster.
* The Big Cube rolls to the right of the screen, turning itself to a giant cog which rolls to the opposite side of the screen. The player dodges by dashing into the cog's black spaces and dashing out of them after. After the cog reaches the left side of the screen, the cog morphs back to the Big Cube as it returns back to the middle. A large black hole-like circle will "explode" on both transformations to damage players too close or that haven't left the gear when it crashes.
* Four sawblades form on the Big Cube; each sawblade moving to every relative direction (up, down, left and right), then they move in a rail clockwise pattern as it leaves a trail of small round spikes as well as creating spikes to the direction of the Big Cube. They stop attacking once they go off-screen.

Second Phase
After a barrage of attacks and around 1 minute and 36 seconds of the level, the Big Cube will stop fighting for a while as it goes tired, dropping down to the middle of the screen. It will then crawl away from sawblades that appear from the bottom right side of the screen that move slowly towards the Big Cube (leftward).
While all of this is happening, the Big Cube loses its hitbox, and beams start to attack, sequencing downward to a certain point, forcing the player to go at the bottom left corner of the screen.
The Big Cube waves its hands as the sawblades are nearing to it, presumably calling for help. However, the Big Cube gets attacked by four beams from each side of the Big Cube and the saws retreat. The Big Cube itself continues its wave of attacks.

Final Phase
After one barrage of attacks as well as one random attack and about 3 minutes and 1 second in the level, a black hole warning ring appears at the middle shortly before disappearing while a claw, a sawblade and an gear of the Big Cube attack at the radius of the circle, each three times and one per "wave". Then four more claws appear around the Big Cube, before shortly pulling a border that extends until it reaches near the Big Cube.
Afterwards, the borders and the Big Cube itself grow sawblades and the camera starts to rotate clockwise with smaller circles that move to the borders from the corrupted Big Cube. After two rotations, the camera starts to rotate counterclockwise for two more rotations. Following that, the borders soon move off-screen as the Big Cube unleashes one more barrage of attacks including one random attack.
As the level reaches its end, the corrupted Big Cube starts to flicker and shrink back to its normal self, with harmful tears appearing lesser and lesser until it finally stops, with the Big Cube back to its initial state, signal a slow end to the level.

Hardcore Mode Changes
First Phase* Floating circles from the Big Cube attack along with tears.
* Two sided beams are larger.

Attack Phases* Cog attack: A larger sawblade replaces the hexagon inside the cog.
* Sawblade attack: Spikes from the sawblades attack more frequently.
* Intermission attack: More lasers will fire out of the Big Cube.

Final Phase* The black hole ring has less warning time before the Big Cube attacks.
* Lasers that fire from the Big Cube during its intermission attack will persist longer.
* Circles drifting out from the Big Cube attack more frequently.
* Like in phase one, floating circles from the Big Cube at the end of its battle will attack along with tears. Although they appear lesser and lesser as the Big Cube reverts back to its initial state.

## Notes

* When the round spikes start to spawn during the first part of the battle, circles that look like flames (akin to Final Boss) are supposed to appear at the bottom of the screen (seen below). But due to an error, it does not spawn often. If this happens, the Cube will fire a round spike at the upper right.
* If the player manages to not end the level after the soundtrack ends, the soundtrack will loop once before it fades out due to the level ending at this point.

## Gallery

Level selectionBeginningClaw attackCog attackSecond phaseThird phase

## Trivia

* This is one of the three levels in the game where a corrupted ally attacks the player, the other levels being Lycanthropy and Spider Dance (Remix).
	+ In addition, this level and Lycanthropy are both boss battles that, once finished, will purify a piece of the Tree of Life.
* With 3 minutes and 40 seconds, this level is the longest out of all levels featured in the game, barring levels that progress via player interaction (in which the player can stall the level long enough) which are Corrupted and Till It's Over.
* The level's soundtrack is a wordplay, Close To Me refers to the attacks that the Big Cube uses during the level, forcing the player to be at least close to them.
* This level shares similarities with Annihilate (Original Mix):
	+ Both have a reversed, slowed, and down pitched version of the song playing in the background at their level selection screen.
	+ Both take place directly near an attempted purification of a triangle.
		- This one succeeds after the level concludes.
	+ Both have the boss visible over the level selection circle, and a triangle above.
	+ Both have lethal tears shed and something running down the boss's face in the initial phase of the level.
	+ Both involve transformations of the boss.
		- This one frequently transforms the Big Cube.
	+ Both have some animated red background for the level select area.
* This level shares similarities with New Game:
	+ The background music at their level selection is a slower track.
	+ Both levels begin with an object without a hitbox (the Friend).
	+ Also, at both levels, that object without hitbox will get corrupted and gain a hitbox.
	+ Both levels are boss battles.
	+ Both have some animated red background for the level select area.
* This level is one of three levels to have the color blue, the others being New Game and Till It's Over.

## References

1. ↑ "*Most of the attacks take up nearly the whole screen, like the claw lift, The big gear, and the final spin thing. All of them force you to stay "CLOSE TO HIM\**" - MIXOQA. YouTube video comment