SPOILERS BEWARE! IF YOU WANT TO DO THIS LEGITIMATELY THEN SOLVE NICHOLAS' RIDDLE ON YOUR OWN!

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You need to obtain all three Moonshards.

[Stage 4] The Father's Arena has one just next to the entrance as the battle begins, after the chase sequence ends. Pick it up after emptying whatever you're carrying, then use it.

[Stage 6] Also right next to the stage start, around a little fence before the booststrip. Neat.

[Stage 11] This one was ironically the one many of us find first. When Nicholas tricks us into ramming nose first into a metal gate in front of a portal, turn around and take a right into an area we never otherwise needed to enter.

Recommended to have a good selection of vehicles and high amount of Insight unlocked. You can always unlock more via the Replay option before a stage, a personal favorite is Nicholas' Cage for minimum size and max handling.

The true final boss!

SAVE BEFORE ATTEMPTING AND NEVER OVERWRITE THIS SAVE!

In order to get to this hidden stage you need to select REFUSE with all three Moonshards collected. They can be collected in Replay.


It starts off with you grabbing the sword and heading forwards off some ledges. If you slow down after this point you will lose. The ledges almost never have any railings so you need to position yourself and angle yourself correctly constantly.


To be clear, you only have to stay above 30-ish.

Falling off will permanently decrease your insight until it is 0 and you automatically get a lesser ending. You can pause and restart the level before dying to avoid losing insight and skip the cutscene.

Swinging the sword give you forward momentum but costs Aether, so right from the start mash Spacebar during jumps to gain extra Aether. Many of the jumps require swinging with an Enemy locked on target, sometimes multiple in a row.

You can change some graphics settiings such as increasing scanlines amount, reducing scanline intensity, and tinkering with brightness and CRT settings to make the image clearer, that way you can see the light next to an enemy to indicate it is locked on.


This platform section lasts just under 2 minutes. There are bird enemies you need to swing at twice in a row to cover huge gaps, ground enemies you need to swing at to reach the ledges, and even some gaps you have to swing at the air to cross.

This stage is actually a little easier with a heavier kart, but the upcoming bossfight is easier with a smaller kart. Some people choose to use the base kart over Nicholas for this reason, but once you memorize the platformer section then Nicholas is the best option.

IT SUCKS AND I HATE THIS PART! BUT WAIT, THERES MORE!

If you die in the boss arena after the platform section, you have to REDO THE COURSE AGAIN.

I could probably do it blindfolded at this point, so stick with it and you'll have it down in no time.

DUN DUN DUN

Miralodia deigns to descend down from their moonlight throne and challenge you directly.

The sword mechanics haven't changed but your Aether gets reset to 5/20. Hit her then powerslide with spacebar or power brake with left shift to generate more hitty points to hit with.

She has a regular kart's invulnerability period and she handles fast enough to consistently stay behind you if you don't powerbrake turn. She will shoot at you during this phase, so after you hit her grab a couple of shinies and generate more points.

Once she hits half health: SURPRISE! THIS WASN'T EVEN HER FINAL FORM! She summons some kind of moonlight monster with a sniper rifle. If you picked a large cart you might take some damage here, but if you picked Nicholas and you keep moving you're basically immune.

If you struggle with the moonlight monster then just strafe in a circle around the top of the hill grabbing shinies. The hill blocks his sniper fire. Once you have all you want, start strafing and hitting the monster.

Once the creature takes a few hits, Miralodia starts moving again. You will know when this phase starts because a health transfusion will spawn on the map at the top of the hill. She will announce her attack with a giant glowing ring, then descend down to the middle dealing massive damage and then flying back up. If you wait outside of the glowing ring and then attack you can get one or two hits in.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO KILL THE SNIPER, BUT YOU CAN IF YOU WANT TO.

Stay on the outside edge, near the booststrip, during the third phase and collect shinies as you go around. Miralodia does not attack the outermost region and it makes it easier to find her spot and wait to attack her.

The first notable achievement for this monstrous task is to beat Miralodia in under 4 minutes. Yikes. The platforming part doesn't have much room for optimization but if you spam enough air tricks you might be able to sneak in a couple of boosts. Always kill even unnecessary mobs if you can to increase your blood and therefor your max speed. Just optimize your powerbraking during the second stage of this level to generate aether and deal damage fast to the bosses, you should be good. I recommend doing this achievement FIRST without attempting the second achievement, because it's going to take a lot of tries to memorize the course.

The second noteworthy achievement is to beat Miralodia with ALL 40 INSIGHT UNLOCKED. If you followed my advice previously then you have a save with all 40 still intact, so you can close the game and load up if you ever fall off a ledge or get sniped.

You do NOT need to fight Miralodia to get the achievement for campaign in under an hour, so do not collect the moonshards or do not refuse if you want that achievement.

The third and final noteworthy achievement is to use your newly unlocked Miralodia with Bighead Mode and win a race. You can access cheats from the main menu and type in TOPHEAVY, then you can play a non-campaign free race and select Miralodia as your driver. I recommend the very first track, the dream circuit, and then use the Num-Minus key to enter first person.

There are also cheats for infinite Aether, ignoring damage, etc.

In fact, you can use cheats to clear the boss fight and still get all the achievements if you want. I didn't, and I finished everything in a few hours, so I don't really recommend it, but if you value your time then go for it.