I managed to make it all the way to what I think was
the last sublevel: Five.
The Empress Bulblax makes a few appearances in the game: it is located on
the last sublevel (5) of Hole of Beasts, sublevel 8 of Frontier Cavern, sublevel 11 of Hole of Heroes, and sublevel 4 of Emperor's Realm in Challenge Mode.
Not exact matches
This means that when the first
sublevel is finished loading, the game reads the variable, and uses an outdated value,
last updated when a
sublevel hole was entered.
Instead of having one day to raise as many Pikmin as possible, players are tasked to get out of the cave via the geyser on the
last floor, but in order to open the geyser or the hole to a following
sublevel, The Key must be delivered to the research pod.
It can only be found on
sublevel 7 of the Snagret Hole,
sublevel 4 of the Hole of Heroes, and the
last (2)
sublevel of the Rumbling Grotto in Challenge Mode.