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What does the Resourceful Rat do in Enter the Gungeon?
The Resourceful Rat is an NPC and a Boss in Enter the Gungeon.
As an NPC, the Resourceful rat will steal ammo, armor, items, and guns that you fail to pick up in the prior room.
Other room drops such as Health, Blanks, Keys, Hegemony Credits, and Glass Guon Stones will not be stolen by the Resourceful Rat.
In addition, if you come back to the previous room quickly, you will encounter the rat in the flesh, but the rat will not steal the items you’ve left behind.
As a boss, the Resourceful Rat can be found in the Resourceful Rat’s lair and will display three different phases in the Boss fight.
How to unlock the Resourceful Rat fight in Enter the Gungeon?
To fight the Resourceful Rat as a Boss, you need to gain access to the Resourceful Rat’s Lair by acquiring the Gnawed key from the shop on the second floor and at least three blanks.
The Resourceful Rat’s Lair can be found through a hidden passage in the Black Powder Mine.
In the Black Powder Mine, look for the room that has multiple rats running around. This room will have a trapdoor hidden by dust that you can reveal by using Goop, spraying water from the Mega Douser, or by using a blank to reveal the trapdoor. Open it by using a key or any key-replacement items.
Drop down the trapdoor and you will arrive in a secret area. Use another key to unlock the second hatch in the secret area and drop to the next floor.
Ride the minecart to the end of the track. Use a blank to reveal the first secret passage, then use another blank to reveal the room with another locked hatch. This time, use the Gnawed Key to enter the Resourceful Rat’s lair. Entering the Resourceful Rat’s Lair will also unlock the Weird Egg.
The next area will be a maze and you will be running against a timer as soon as you fall into the first large hole. The right location will be hinted to you via the six notes that the Resourceful Rat leaves behind around the Gungeon. These notes will have a chunk of cheese facing in different directions, pointing towards the correct directions to take in the maze. Without these notes, it will be impossible to reach the Resourceful Rat in time.
How do you stop a Resourceful Rat?
The Resourceful Rat boss fight will have three phases – Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3.
In each phase, the Resourceful Rat will use various means to defend and attack, making use of traditional traps and weapons in Phase 1, using mechanical inventions in Phase 2, and finally, taking you on a 1v1 boxing match ala Punch-Out!!
Phase 1
In Phase 1 of the Resourceful Rat boss fight, you can expect mousetraps, cheese bullets, Kunai, and a poison leak from the Resourceful Rat. Phase 1 will be a more traditional Enter the Gungeon boss fight in terms of boss mechanics, where the Resourceful Rat will use bullets and other traditional weapons to fight you.
Phase 2
In Phase 2, the Resourceful Rat will pilot a stationary mecha called the Mechanical RAT and will feature a completely different set of attacks compared to Phase 1.
The Mechanical RAT will have two weapon systems on its shoulders that it can use to:
- Fire lasers that leave fire trails. The fire trails can randomly spawn bullets.
- Fire a sweeping laser that leaves a trail of fire.
- Fire rings of bullets that move circularly.
- Fire missiles that curve toward you and eventually burst into bullets upon hitting a wall.
- Spawn a bullet in the shape of a crosshair that follows your character. After a while, this crosshair-shaped bullet group will burst into a ring of bullets.
In addition, the Mechanical RAT will stomp when you attempt to flank it. This will cause the flanking side of the screen to become filled with bullets. The RAT will also occasionally sweep its feet across the floor, scarring the ground and causing bullets to spawn outward.
Phase 3
Phase 3 is where the real fun starts – you will take on the Resourceful Rat in a Punch-Out!! style game mode and the Resourceful Rat turns into a moving pinata that drops pickups, items, and guns whenever you successfully hit it.
The Resourceful Rat will have three health bars that increase in difficulty as you fight him. To defeat the Resourceful Rat, you will have to deplete its health bar to zero through the use of Super Attacks and normal attacks.
Your Super Attack will gain a charge whenever you land a hit on the Resourceful Rat when it is glowing yellow. However, your Super Attack charge will become reset if the Rat lands any attack on you at any point in the fight.
The Resourceful Rat will display various attacks depending on his health bars in Phase 3. The Rat will start off with attacks such as a traditional straight punch, a Taunt, and uppercuts.
For the next phase, the Rat will start to use combinations, displaying more complex attacking behavior such as a three straight then uppercut combo, a spin attack, slinging off the back of RAT, and healing with cheese.
Finally, in the last phase, the Resourceful Rat will use all of his attacks from the previous phase with increased speed alongside a spin attack that hits four times, throwing an ammo box, and getting dirty by using a brass knuckle wind-up punch.
It is worth noting that in Phase 3, you will not die if you run out of health or time. Instead, the Resourceful Rat will run away and leave you a note. All pickups and Rat keys can still be collected.
What do you get for beating Resourceful Rat?
Aside from the various pickups and items that the Resourceful Rat drops in the Punch-Out!! Phase of the fight, you will get a Rat key for starting the fight, finishing a round with a super attack (3 keys for all 3 rounds), another key for winning the fight, and a bonus key for finishing all three rounds with a 3-star super punch.
To get all the Rat keys, you need to knock out the Resourceful Rat three times with a three-star super punch.
How do I become a Resourceful Rat?
You need to collect all four Rat keys to turn into the Resourceful Rat in Enter the Gungeon.
After beating the Resourceful Rat, unlock all four chests in the boss room and collect all the Rat’s items. Collecting all four (which requires you to have all four Rat keys) will turn you into the Resourceful Rat himself.
Conclusion
The Resourceful Rat is one of the most interesting NPCs in Enter the Gungeon. As annoying as it is to find out that the Resourceful Rat has stolen some of the items you have left lying on the floor in the Gungeon can be, he will use these items to create mecha that will make your eventual fight with him more challenging in Enter the Gungeon.