The Dark Chimera

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The Dark Chimera
Alignment	Bad
Appears in	Rayman Redemption
Location	Mr Dark's Dare
Portrayed by	{{{portrayed by}}}
Resistance
Attacks	Claw, roll, pots, lasers, scorpion tail, energy projectiles, air dash, wrong notes, exploding rocks, jump attack
Sex	{{{sex}}}
Species	Various
Relatives	{{{relatives}}}

You are too late, Rayman. Unlike you, I have spent this time wisely, studying the Great Protoon. Its power is all mine now. I can create anything I want with it. Let's try this out. How will you handle all my strongest minions... at once?

—Mr Dark, Rayman Redemption

The Dark Chimera is a boss in Rayman Redemption, and a reimagining of Mr Dark's transformations into hybrids at the end of Rayman 1. It is a creation of Mr Dark, which the latter sets upon Rayman at the end of Mr Dark's Dare, using the power of the Great Protoon. The Dark Chimera is as a series of amalgamations - each combining various aspects of appearance and attack patterns of two or three of the major bosses previously encountered, and defeated by Rayman.

The Battle

Phase 1

Rayman battles an amalgamation of Mr Skops' head and claw, with Mr Stone's body. He must jump over the claw that's launched at him, and throw his fist at the face while it cannot be protected by the claw.

Phase 2

Rayman meets an amalgamation of the Menace and Space Mama, which also sports Mr Skops' clawed feet. He must jump over it as it rolls across the screen, avoid both the boiling pot and the laser, and throw his fist at the creature as it clings to a wall.

Phase 3

Rayman is challenged by a pair of airborne creatures with Moskito bodies and Space Mama heads, hands and lasers. Avoiding the lasers coming at him from both directions, Rayman can either throw his fist at the amalgamations, or try to let them hit each other with the laser. It does not matter which creature is being hit - landing 4 successful hits will defeat the duo.

Phase 4

Rayman encounters an airborne amalgamation of Moskito's head and Mr Skops' long scorpion tail. The creature attacks with Mr Skops' energy projectiles, which follow Rayman's fist. Launching the fist with very precise timing will cause the projectiles to explode at the creature's head, harming it. However, it is easier to simply throw the fist four times to avoid damage, then hit the creature in mid-air as it performs Moskito's flying dash across the screen.

Phase 5

Rayman is assaulted by an amalgamation of Mr Stone's head and feet, and Mr Sax's body, which launches changing sequences of musical bombs and exploding rocks out of the saxophone. If Rayman survives the barrage, eventually a plain wrong note will be launched, which can be hit with the fist to push it back into the enemy and damage it.

Phase 6

Rayman duels with an amalgamation of Moskito's head, Space Mama's body and Mr Sax's feet. Its only attack is jumping in the air, attempting to land on Rayman and squash him. Rayman must avoid it, jump and throw his fist at the creature's head to hurt it. Rayman is not shrunk during this final phase unlike in the original Mr Dark's Dare in every version besides Atari Jaguar, nor is he thrown into the air each time the creature lands on the ground, thus making it much more similar to the battle in the Jaguar release.

Gallery

• 
  Mr Dark introducing the Dark Chimera.
• 
  The Mr Stone and Mr Skops amalgamation.
• 
  The Space Mama, Mr Skops and Menace amalgamation.
• 
  The Moskito and Space Mama amalgamation.
• 
  The Moskito and Mr Skops amalgamation.
• 
  The Mr Sax and Mr Stone amalgamation.
• 
  The Moskito, Mr Sax and Space Mama amalgamation.
• 
  The windows are about to shatter as the final amalgamation is defeated.
• 
  A view of the sky and the moon through the broken windows after the battle.
• 
  The True Boss Rush battle, featuring different stained glass introduced in version 1.2.2.
• 
  The isolated background of the Dark Chimera's battle.
• 
  The isolated background of the True Boss Rush fight added in version 1.2.2.

Trivia

• The Dark Chimera has a unique music theme sharing the same name, and is the most positively received track in Rayman Redemption alongside Battle for the Great Protoon.
• The Dark Chimera track features a leitmotif from Darktoon's Mischief and is meant to be a remix of Darktoon's theme, as a remnant of Rayman Redemption's early development when Darktoon was intended to be transformed into the Dark Chimera by Mr Dark.
• The battle with the Dark Chimera is a homage to the final battle of the original Rayman game, where Rayman was also battling similar creatures fused of different parts of several bosses.
• In Rayman 1, it was never clearly explained whether the creatures are Mr Dark's creations or him transforming into his alternate forms. Two pieces of evidence that may point to the latter are the boss health bar which shows a picture of Mr Dark, and the fact that Mr Dark himself is nowhere to be seen after the battle. Rayman Redemption, however, makes it clear that the Dark Chimera, albeit unnamed in the game, is created by Mr Dark, who announces it openly. Furthermore, if Rayman defeats all the amalgamations, he will have to battle Mr Dark himself.
• The Dark Chimera presents a total of six different forms, matching the number of stained glass in Rayman Redemption. The first, third, and sixth form are reincarnations of the three forms in the final battle of the original game. The second, fourth and fifths are new. However, as each form in Rayman Redemption has half the hit points - their total number remains the same, at 24. Instead of having three separate life bars of 8 points each, like in Rayman 1, a single 24-point bar is presented. The image on the bar shows a grotesque jumble of eyeballs representing an eye of each boss amalgamated into the Dark Chimera.
• The Menace has the least hybrids and used body parts, having only one, alongside Mr Stone who has two amalgamations while the other bosses have three.
• Mr Sax is the only boss featured in this fight whose head isn't featured in any of the amalgamations.
• The stained glass windows depicting the five original bosses have been augmented with a sixth one at the top, showing the Menace. The subset of images related to a specific amalgamation will flash when it appears and every time it is damaged before finally shattering once the Dark Chimera is defeated, similarly to the Saturn version of the original Rayman, although the top one doesn't reveal the sky and the second smaller Moon as the European Rayman 1 on the Saturn did. Additionally, since version 1.1.2, the stained glass changes colors in the True Boss Rush to match those of the bosses' harder counterparts.
• When playing in 16:9 aspect ratio, two dark stone walls will frame the Dark Chimera's arena. As most returning bosses, this was done in order to not stretch the original background art and to keep gameplay the same between 4:3 and widescreen formats.