4-S: CLASH OF THE BRANDICOOT (2024)

"If only we knew the suffering that would befall us next..."
This page describes special lore or secret content.
Continue at your own risk!

For more information about other missions, see Levels

CLASH OF THE BRANDICOOT is the secret mission for the GREED layer, and can be accessed through [ 4-2: GOD DAMN THE SUN ]. It is a direct homage to the Crash Bandicoot series. It's title is wordplay of "Clash of the Brands", along with "Crash Bandicoot".

Overview[]

Unlike the rest of the game, 4-S is played from a 3rd person perspective. V1's goal is to navigate through a long, winding level, dodging obstacles and the attacks of enemies, while also trying to break as many boxes as it can.

In 4-S, V1 cannot use its fists or weapons and instead must fight via either a spin attack (triggered with primary fire, secondary fire, or melee) or by jumping on enemies' heads, both of which are instant kills. To balance this, any damage taken in this level counts as instant death. V1 can dash three times as usual. However, to make the level more challenging, V1 cannot wall-jump and its movement has slight inertia, which causes it to slide a little bit after landing, stopping the player from cheesing the platforming sections too hard.

The player is also able to collect coins on this level. Each coin collected earns V1 100P at the end of the level.

Much like in Crash Bandicoot, the player can mitigate their health limitation by breaking blue skull boxes: once broken, a blue skull will float around V1, acting as an extra hit for the player. There are three blue skull boxes in the level, and skulls can be stacked:

• Picking up a blue skull while a blue skull is already active will turn the skull red, allowing it to sustain an additional hit.
• Picking up a blue skull while a red skull is active will turn the skull purple for 20 seconds and cause V1 to wear it on its head. The purple skull emits a small circular aura and makes a low droning noise. While the purple skull is active, the player is rendered impervious to all damage (save for falling into the void), enemies will die on contact with V1, and all boxes in V1's proximity instantly break even without direct contact. Once the purple skull's power fades out, it shifts to red again.

Main Areas[]

Entrance[]

The goal of this area is to introduce the player to the main mechanics of the level, the different control scheme, the spin attack, the blue skull powerup, and the need to destroy boxes.

The Dark Hallway[]

This section has very few enemies and focuses largely on precision platforming as V1 has to cross several bottomless pits between torch-lit platforms.

The Sideways Path[]

This section is a short interlude between the platforming section and the finale, featuring a few enemies and a large number of boxes to break.

The Boulder Chase[]

A staple in the Crash Bandicoot series is several levels ending with a massive boulder chasing after the player's character in a fashion similar to Indiana Jones. 4-S ends in this fashion too, with V1 being chased by a massive, rolling Malicious Face.

Once the player has finally evaded the "boulder," the camera returns to first-person perspective and the number of broken boxes is presented, after which V1 can leave through the level exit. The level awards 100 points per coin collected.

Reward[]

The ending room of 4-S includes a short platform lit up with blue light. If the player has not destroyed all 78 boxes, it will display how many the player destroyed out of the 78 inside a rotating, holographic question-mark box. Completing the level without destroying all boxes will still provide a P rank for the Greed layer.

When the player completes 4-S after destroying all 78 boxes, the hologram will be replaced with a spinning tablet with a drawing of a running man. When the player collects the tablet, V1 will do a short dance sequence, imitating the victory dance from Crash Bandicoot 3. After the sequence completes, the player unlocks the Clash Mode cheat.

Clash Mode is a cheat that enables 4-S's platform platformer controls and mechanics for use in every level, with an unfixed third-person camera enabled outside of 4-S. V1's spin attack and head stomp will instantly kill enemies and not provide any style, similar to soap. Enemies hit by the spin attack fly away from V1 in a straight line, instantly killing all other enemies in their path. The spin attack can also be used to pick up red and blue skulls. Any damage taken will instantly kill V1, as is the case in 4-S, but collecting Soul Orbs and power-ups will grant protector skulls: normal blue Soul Orbs will grant the equivalent of one protector, red Soul Orbs grant two, and Dual Wield power-ups grant three. Certain areas of the game also include unbreakable bounce boxes that allow the player to progress through a part of the level that would otherwise be impossible in Clash Mode.

Testament III[]

The Secret Terminal at the end of this level contains Testament III.

Trivia[]

• The usage of skulls as health power-ups, as well as the ability to stack them and the temporary invincibility granted by the purple skull, are a direct reference to the Aku Aku boxes in the Crash Bandicoot games.

  • 

    Per Hakita, the three tiers of protector skulls are named Hank, Frank, and Herb.
    • The purple skull is a reference to the content creator and community figure HerbMessiah, who uses a similarly colored skull as his profile picture. He is well known for his guides on technical aspects of ULTRAKILL.
• This level can be traversed from the 1^st person perspective in a number of ways involving Cheats, though no HUD will be displayed and only arms are available to use.
  • After finishing the boulder chase, the player regains normal controls. It is possible to then enable Cheats and noclip through the blocked entrance allowing the player to explore the level and break the remaining crates with ease.
  • If the Clash Mode cheat is unlocked, then entering the level, enabling Clash Mode, and then disabling it will allow the player to proceed through the entire map from the normal perspective.
  • By using noclip to circumvent the invisible Clash Mode trigger at the start, and taking care to use checkpoints and/or level transitions to load necessary terrain, the player can traverse the entire level and reach the exit without having to interact with the platformer mechanics once. Secret level completion is not blocked by cheats, so the completion marker can be acquired without hassle if the level itself is a particular point of frustration. However, the Clash Mode trigger must have been activated in that run to be able to collect the Clash Mode cheat, and without the cheat unlocked the only way to disable Clash Mode and regain use of normal cheats is to reach the end of the level, so at least some level of interaction with Clash Mode is necessary to unlock the cheat. Nonetheless, cheats in general can still be used without compromising the unlock, and major threats and problematic crates can still be cleared out beforehand, though care must be taken to not trigger the boulder chase before touching the Clash Mode trigger, as this will leave the entire final hallway inaccessible and necessitate a restart.
• The name of the song that plays in this level is "The song that plays in the level colloquially known as 4-S", found here. This pays tribute to the fact that this song does, indeed, play in the level of ULTRAKILL that is known colloquially as 4-S.
  • This may also be a reference to "The Song That Might Play When You Fight Sans" from UNDERTALE, found here. Unlike the song in 4-S, this song does not appear anywhere within UNDERTALE.
• This is the only mission in ULTRAKILL to directly punish the player, as opposed to the denizens of Hell.