Raahloom, titled The Imposing Prototype, was a massive and extremely tough variant of Scrapjack armed wth a modified SBC Cannon and large hammer. He is the final boss of the Serious Sam 3: BFE expansion pack Jewel of the Nile, thus serving as the DLC's main antagonist.
Biography[]
Raahloom was the first great prototype of Mental's Necromechanoid Project. Like the original Scrapjack, he was created from sewn-together parts of various models, though in Raahloom's case, he was created from massive beasts, such as Highlander Aludran Reptiloids.[1]
Appearances[]
Serious Sam 3: BFE[]
Jewel of the Nile[]
Sam encounters Raahloom upon exiting the tomb of Sethirkopshef containing the Time-Lock control room, which initiates a large fight between the two. During the fight, a few Beheaded Kamikazes and Kleer Skeletons will spawn to attack the player. On co-op, a Major Bio-mechanoid and Khnum will also appear as extra enemies.[2]
Behavior and skills[]
Raahloom charging up his warhammer.
Raahloom was equipped with two weapons; on his right arm was a huge SBC Cannon, one of the original ones, which is now rarely used by Mental's forces.[1] This weapon is mainly used at medium to long-range distances. On his left arm, he wielded a large hammer, which he used at close range. Both of Raahloom's weapons were extremely powerful; a single cannonball fired from his cannon could tear a human into pieces, while his hammer dealt a devastating shockwave than could pulverise anything that got too close.[2]
When a target is some distance from Raahloom, he will fire a volley of cannonballs at them with his cannon (at least three and at most six). These cannonballs, while they are moving at high speeds, will instantly gib a player regardless of their health as they have a piercing power of 5000, even on Tourist difficulty, and the player normally cannot have more than 5000 total health and armor. This makes Raahloom the only official enemy in the game that can gib the player. His cannonballs deal quadruple the splash damage compared to the player's own cannonballs as well, meaning that even if one of Raahloom's cannonballs doesn't directly hit the player, it can still instantly kill or severely wound the player if they are in its blast radius, especially on Serious difficulty, although players cannot be gibbed this way as splash damage is always counted as Explosion damage regardless of the projectile's direct damage type. Additionally, Raahloom's cannonballs have quite a short lifespan, lasting only two seconds between being spawned and exploding in mid-air, so they won't be able to hit a player that's too far away.
These cannonballs also travel in a linear trajectory and are unaffected by gravity unlike standard cannonballs, meaning they will only change direction if they collide with or are perpendicular to a hard surface, in a manner not dissimilar to the plasma orbs fired by the Exotech Larva. The main difference from the latter is that Raahloom's cannonballs will lose speed once they deflect off a hard surface, such as a wall. Furthermore, to distinguish these cannonballs from the player's, Raahloom's cannonballs emit a visible trail of black smoke. Raahloom's cannonballs can also instantly kill any enemies that happen to get hit, although some of them cannot be gibbed this way (e.g. the Common Aludran Reptiloid can only be gibbed with the player's own cannon).
If the target he's focusing on is near him, Raahloom will raise his war hammer. While his hammer is in the air, he will begin charging it up. As soon as it finishes charging, it will flash and a noticeable "swish" sound will be heard. A few seconds later, he will smash the ground with his hammer, releasing a very powerful shockwave that can do massive amounts of damage even if someone is at the edge of the shockwave's reach. Anyone close to the site of impact will take a huge amount of damage or even be killed in one hit. Any small targets, including players, who get hit will receive extreme knockback, regardless of whether or not they survive. However, when Raahloom raises and charges his war hammer, he is vulnerable as he is immobile and takes a long time before he strikes the ground with his hammer.
Should a player get too close to Raahloom and directly touch him, he will deal 1000 points of Kicking damage to them, killing them instantly.
Tactics[]
- Raahloom has a ton of health, so it's best to use almost everything on him as soon as possible. Every little bit helps.
- The key to defeating this boss is to toss a large amount of C-4 charges near him, then blow them up. Five or more C-4 charges blown up near him at once can do a good amount of damage to him. There are several C-4 ammo crates scattered throughout the arena, so getting more ammo is easy.
- In order to make a large pile of C-4 charges, the player needs to get close to him. However, this is dangerous, as it triggers his melee attack. To get around this, the player should run up and get close to him (but not next to him) and start tossing C-4 charges until they hear a “swish” sound. That means his hammer is done charging up and he's ready to strike with it. At this point, get away from him quickly. By the time he strikes, the player will be far enough from him to take no damage.
- Raahloom's cannonballs can be dodged by simply strafing in a certain direction. This works best if the player is some distance away from him. If the player strafes his cannonballs while he is firing them and the player is too close to him, more specifically if they are directly in front of his cannon (his right arm), there is a high chance that one of the cannonballs will instantly splatter the player.
- Cover is useless in this fight, as Raahloom's cannonballs have more than enough piercing power to destroy any building or column in the arena. He can even destroy any structure in the area just by walking through it.
- It's a good idea to keep some ammo for the A-24 Devastator, M29 Infantry Assault Rifle, XL2 Lasergun, and/or XM214-A Minigun while fighting Raahloom, as Beheaded Kamikazes and Kleer Skeletons will appear in the early part of the battle. These weapons can quickly take them out.
- On co-op, the XPML21 Rocket Launcher, Devastator, and cannon can quickly eliminate the Khnum and Major Bio-mechanoid that spawn as extra enemies.
- It is highly recommended to avoid doing Melee Grabs on any Kleers that are present due to the risk of being instagibbed by Raahloom's cannonballs. The player must be on the move at all times to avoid getting instagibbed and should especially avoid being trapped by a structure in the area.
- The player should get just out of range so that Raahloom starts to fire his cannon at them. The player should run towards him while strafing to the side (and preferably to the left), and he won't be able to hit the player with any of his cannonballs. While he's doing this, Raahloom won't be able to initiate his warhammer attack yet, giving the player ample time to run in close. Once the player is close enough to him while wielding C-4, they will see a large C-4 target appear on his belly and should throw a stick of C-4 at the target. His cannonball volley will end, and he will start his hammer attack. Run away and detonate the C-4 charge before Raahloom strikes the ground with his hammer, and he will take at least 5300 damage, which erases a good portion of his health. Continue doing this up to 10 times and the player should be able to defeat him with little trouble.
Powers and abilities[]
- Immense Durability and Endurance: As Raahloom was created from massive creatures, namely the Highlander Reptiloids, he had inherited the resilence of these corpses, which granted him durability of immense proportions.[1] Because of this, the majority of weapons in Sam's arsenal would barely leave a scratch on him, although high explosives like C-4 Demolition Charges were his greatest weakness, dealing 10 times as much damage to him as they would than against any other enemy.
- Immense Strength: A secondary trait that Raahloom had inherited from the beasts that was used in the Necromechanoid Project. Utilizing his incredible strength, Raahloom was able to carry around a war hammer which was around roughly half of his size, as well as a giant cannon sown into his left arm, with minimal effort. He was able to lift his hammer up into the air with considerable strength and slam it down into the ground which would release an incredibly powerful shockwave that would devastate anything in its path. He could also easily pulverize any obstacles that stood in his way, reducing large temples and ancient Egyptian structures into rubble.[2]
- Massive Size: Raahloom was massive compared to the more commonly seen Scrapjacks in Mental's army. He towered over many of the ancient Egyptian structures in the area where he fought Sam.
Appearance[]
Raahloom was a massive Scrapjack standing over 100 meters tall. Like his far much smaller brethren, he was made from sewn together parts of other models seen in Mental's army, but his body had undergone far much more modifications, as seen on his upper torso and in his arms, where one of them had been replaced with a cannon.[1]
Behind the scenes[]
- A prototype version of Raahloom's war hammer attack animation was added to the normal Scrapjack's animation file a few months before Jewel of the Nile was released.
- Raahloom has an unused "Anger" animation where he furiously raises his hammer.
Trivia[]
- He has five times as much as health as Ugh-Zan IV does.
- In the original version of Serious Sam 3, Raahloom neither has a NETRICSA description nor a proper boss icon. This is fixed in the Serious Sam Fusion version.
- Also in the Serious Sam Fusion version, the boss fight against Raahloom uses the same music from the boss fight against the Alcor Class Warship at the end of the level "Under the Iron Cloud". This fixes an error with the boss script in the original version of the level where the function
worldInfo:ForceMusic("Continuous", gore)does not have a specific music file assigned to it.
- Also in the Serious Sam Fusion version, the boss fight against Raahloom uses the same music from the boss fight against the Alcor Class Warship at the end of the level "Under the Iron Cloud". This fixes an error with the boss script in the original version of the level where the function
- C-4 that is thrown onto Raahloom's body is scaled five times as large as normal C-4. This is to more easily highlight spots on his body to which the player can attach C-4.
- The Scrapjack boss puppet entity, which Raahloom uses, is also unique in that it can use this behavior of setting the C-4 highlight stretch multiplier (the function name is
SetStickyBombStretchMultiplier).
- The Scrapjack boss puppet entity, which Raahloom uses, is also unique in that it can use this behavior of setting the C-4 highlight stretch multiplier (the function name is
- When used as an enemy in custom levels, Raahloom will enter a largely unfinished ragdoll state if he is killed. The only way to fix this is to modify his model file's death animation scheme to use his death animation from the ending cutscene of Born Again.
- Raahloom's cannonballs have a separate entity and model from the player's own cannonballs. In the game files, they are known as "Canonball_ScrapjackMonster.ep" and "CannonballScrapjackBoss.mdl", respectively.
- Raahloom's cannonballs being able to instantly kill any enemy or player in the game with a direct hit is due to a change introduced in Serious Engine 3 (used by Serious Sam HD) regarding piercing power - if a target is hit by a projectile with a higher piercing power than their health, they will be instantly killed even if they otherwise have enough total health and armor to survive the projectile's normal damage output, even when difficulty-dependent damage multipliers are considered.
- Because of this, Raahloom's cannonballs automatically have their damage type changed from Impact to Piercing unless the character/enemy they hit has 5,001 health or higher.
- Raahloom's NETRICSA description in the Fusion version of the game actually originates from a mod for the original Serious Sam 3, that mod being the Ultimate Resource Pack. This also explains why the Highlander Reptiloids were mentioned in the description despite not appearing in the non-moddable version of the game as they also come from the Ultimate Resource Pack.
Gallery[]
List of appearances[]
- Serious Sam 3: BFE (First appearance) (Jewel of the Nile DLC only)
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 NETRICSA description
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Jewel of the Nile level: "Born Again"
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