You’ll hear a lot of about Dr Hayln throughout your time exploring the world of MIO: Memories In Orbit, but mainly through discovering notes, hidden passageways meant for their assistant, or Mel occupying their workshop.
However, it’s only when you discover Dr Hayln’s Experiment that you get your first true physical encounter with something from the mind of Dr Hayln.
Poltergates is a tricky boss that literally doubles in difficulty throughout the fight. But, with a decent setup and an understanding of their moveset you should be able to shut the door on this chapter.
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Where Is Poltergates In MIO: Memories In Orbit?
Poltergates is located directly below the first building you reach when you enter Metropolis via Dwellings.
To make your way through the secret passageway leading to this boss, you need to have access to Striders, allowing you to wall crawl.
So, before you head to face this boss, you will need to beat Atmos and explore the area beyond that boss in Foundations to get this ability.
When you have this ability, platform down until the reach a room on the left, and when you enter, the door will animate, beginning your fight against Poltergates.
How To Prepare
Unlike a lot of the later game bosses featured in MIO, you don’t have to rely on the dodge ability too much in this fight. Mainly because a lot of the attacks that Poltergates uses are so telegraphed and avoidable with basic movement.
This means that you can invest your allocation matrix points elsewhere. Assuming you have about 60-80 allocation points, these are the mods that I would consider most helpful for this fight:
- Protective Overlay
- Defense Mechanism
- Kinetic Thrust
- The Hand’s Greed
- Bird of Prey
I wouldn’t consider any of those to be gamechangers, so mix and match with what makes sense for your approach. However, I would urge players to try and acquire at least two Coating Component upgrades for added protection.
How To Beat Poltergates
Now comes the battle against Poltergates. This fight is a fast-paced one, and one that becomes a lot more complex when there’s two doors to contend with. Here is the moveset that you’ll need to get familiar with:
- Door Dash: Poltergates lines up a charge attack and zooms at the player at pace. Best counter is to jump relatively early and use Sail to hover over the enemy.
- Slam The Door: Poltergates teleports above the player’s head and slams to the ground. Sometimes repeats this attack back to back. Just move left or right to avoid this.
- Shuffle Attack: Poltergates starts at one end of the room and shuffles along the ground to the other side. Easiest counter is to double jump and glide over them while they shuffle.
- Minion Swarm: About a quarter of the way through their HP bar, they will spawn three minion enemies. Two icicle turrets and a hummingbird enemy. Turn all your focus on them to get them off-screen as fast as possible. But be wary of Poltergates’ position.
- Waterfall Attack: Only occurs when Poltergates duplicates. One of the doors will latch to the ceiling and spew out a steady flow of water. Easily avoided but can make avoiding the other active door a challenge.
- Floor Door Attack: Only occurs when Poltergates duplicates. Both doors will teleport to the ground and rise to the ceiling straight up. This repeats several times. Is usually avoided by remaining central.
As mentioned, the key to this boss fight is learning the patterns in the first phase of the fight, and then taking these lessons into the second phase where there are two enemies to deal with.
An extra tip would be to try and avoid hugging either side as the waterfall attacks can pen you in if you’re not careful.
But mainly, it’s all about reacting in real time and getting your positioning right. If you can do that, you’ll come out the other side the victor.
Rewards For Defeating Poltergates
The reward for completing this boss fight is access to the church area where you’ll be able to pick up the Enhanced Dodge Mod, as well as a Candle that can be used as a Tribute.
In addition, you will also earn the ‘Maybe Knock Next Time’ achievement.
