Time - That one little airplane enemy...
Submitted by mike89
That'd be right. I just put up my video, and now this comes up. I was alerted to the possibility of this strategy on GameFAQs, and it became better than I could ever imagine...
You may already be familiar with the first half of the strategy from the vid - nothing has changed in that regard. Spindash to start, hit the spring and run over to the boost plate. Don't roll, rather, stay in running form. Run into the next boost plate at the end of the line, then as you approach the small hill ahead, slow down and jump, then glide right.
Glide over the next set of spikes, then spindash. You need to time your jump so you hit the ceiling, but miss the metallic Orbinaut below. Then, jump and glide across the gap, kill the enemy and spindash. You'll be thrown into another boost plate, taking you left - jump before you reach the end here, it'll save you hitting the spring. Now roll into the tap, and spindash back into it. You should emerge at about 23 seconds.
Spindash right and jump over the Orbinaut again, hit the boost plate and grab the hook. Glide right off it as soon as you can get under the wall to your right, climb up the wall and hit the computer to open the next path. When you get to the bottom, spindash left and the boost plate will take you right.
Hold down through this sequence until you stop. Spindash left and the area will begin to fill with water - but if you're quick enough you can beat it. Jump up one platform, then jump and glide past the enemy and onto the higher platform. Grab the wall on your right, then switch to the left and a machine will boost you up. A maximum height jump followed by a glide will just clear the Orbinaut here, so as soon as you're past it drop down and do another glide onto the boost plate. If you were quick enough, there should be no water!
It's not going to make that much of a difference, unfortunately. Make sure you roll up the slope, then as you descend try to catch the red spring, and jump off the small ramp to go right up to the top, bypassing the rotating platform in the process. Spindash and make a low jump over the spikes so you take out the frog-like enemy. See the airplane enemy that tried to hit you on the way down. He's your best friend at the moment.
However, you can't make good use of him until he starts his dive from a fairly low position, about the height of the water by the time it finally catches up with you. Now, you need to time a jump such that you descend as it is ascending. When you're about to hit it, glide.
This technique has been known for a long time and has multiple uses, but its usefulness here has only just surfaced. A well timed glide off an enemy or item box gives you a substantial bounce - in this case, just enough to get up to the platform that should only be accessible by Sonic or Tails. This process is henceforth referred to as a "superglide."
Proceed to the cannon boss as per usual.
Now you're presented with another difficulty. Knuckles' jump isn't quite enough to reach this boss - so how do you beat it? Surprisingly, there is a way - and it doesn't involve a superglide either. If you simply mash the A, B and C buttons, and hold right, you'll continually jump and glide. The idea here is that you land your glide at the very edge of the ground, above the platform where the cannonballs are shot either side of, but still below the boss. From here, you have a few frames on which you can jump - this gives you enough height to hit the boss!
You can do that eight times, but there's an even better method - and it again involves abusing the glide. You probably won't consciously do this, but if you jump, hit Robotnik and then glide, you'll glide through the boss and land on the boss platform! From here, you can just jump or spindash to hit the boss for the other seven hits.
Now for the inevitable question: What happens when you jump in the Egg-O-Matic? Some may say you'd fight both of Knuckles' bosses, or perhaps you'd only fight the tower boss as per Sonic's story. And a fair few of you aren't going to have a clue. In fact, there's quite a few bizarre happenings after you jump in - the cosmetic ones on the way to the boss platform I will leave you to find out for yourself.
Two additional things have happened, which you should spot as the boss appears. First is the appearance of the boss - everything except Eggrobo himself is glitched beyond belief. This is something reminiscent of your playing around with Debug mode... But this is only the beginning.
The other thing is far more prevalent, at least for us time attackers. Remember how, when you defeat the first boss, the timer stops? When the boss disappears off the screen, take a moment to look at the timer.
What did you notice? The timer never restarted.
Let me run that by you again.
The timer never restarted.
What does this mean? Well, it means that the time you finished the first boss is your final time! By association, it means you can take as long as you like with these two bosses for the same result (which is lucky, as you're likely to not have many rings at this point).
Why does it happen? Honestly, I don't know. My best guess would be:
* When you defeat the cannon boss in S3&K, there is a trigger that essentially says "stop the timer".
* When you arrive on the final boss platform, the timer is supposed to restart. However, of course, you're only meant to be here as Sonic and/or Tails, so the trigger to restart the timer only exists for these two characters. When Knuckles fights this boss, the timer is still running, so there's no trigger to make the timer restart. Therefore it remains stopped!
As such, you can take the last two bosses at your own pace, and as long as you don't die, you'll have the same time you had at the cannon boss. Nifty, eh?
And now for the usual analysis:
Time: 1:55
Analysis: There is so much improvement left in this time. The cannon boss was far from optimal, and there were little mistakes in the run - however, I don't see it being beaten for a while, because the jump up to the cannon boss is quite hard to aim and once there, it's also hard to execute the jump-glide for quick hits.
You may already be familiar with the first half of the strategy from the vid - nothing has changed in that regard. Spindash to start, hit the spring and run over to the boost plate. Don't roll, rather, stay in running form. Run into the next boost plate at the end of the line, then as you approach the small hill ahead, slow down and jump, then glide right.
Glide over the next set of spikes, then spindash. You need to time your jump so you hit the ceiling, but miss the metallic Orbinaut below. Then, jump and glide across the gap, kill the enemy and spindash. You'll be thrown into another boost plate, taking you left - jump before you reach the end here, it'll save you hitting the spring. Now roll into the tap, and spindash back into it. You should emerge at about 23 seconds.
Spindash right and jump over the Orbinaut again, hit the boost plate and grab the hook. Glide right off it as soon as you can get under the wall to your right, climb up the wall and hit the computer to open the next path. When you get to the bottom, spindash left and the boost plate will take you right.
Hold down through this sequence until you stop. Spindash left and the area will begin to fill with water - but if you're quick enough you can beat it. Jump up one platform, then jump and glide past the enemy and onto the higher platform. Grab the wall on your right, then switch to the left and a machine will boost you up. A maximum height jump followed by a glide will just clear the Orbinaut here, so as soon as you're past it drop down and do another glide onto the boost plate. If you were quick enough, there should be no water!
It's not going to make that much of a difference, unfortunately. Make sure you roll up the slope, then as you descend try to catch the red spring, and jump off the small ramp to go right up to the top, bypassing the rotating platform in the process. Spindash and make a low jump over the spikes so you take out the frog-like enemy. See the airplane enemy that tried to hit you on the way down. He's your best friend at the moment.
However, you can't make good use of him until he starts his dive from a fairly low position, about the height of the water by the time it finally catches up with you. Now, you need to time a jump such that you descend as it is ascending. When you're about to hit it, glide.
This technique has been known for a long time and has multiple uses, but its usefulness here has only just surfaced. A well timed glide off an enemy or item box gives you a substantial bounce - in this case, just enough to get up to the platform that should only be accessible by Sonic or Tails. This process is henceforth referred to as a "superglide."
Proceed to the cannon boss as per usual.
Now you're presented with another difficulty. Knuckles' jump isn't quite enough to reach this boss - so how do you beat it? Surprisingly, there is a way - and it doesn't involve a superglide either. If you simply mash the A, B and C buttons, and hold right, you'll continually jump and glide. The idea here is that you land your glide at the very edge of the ground, above the platform where the cannonballs are shot either side of, but still below the boss. From here, you have a few frames on which you can jump - this gives you enough height to hit the boss!
You can do that eight times, but there's an even better method - and it again involves abusing the glide. You probably won't consciously do this, but if you jump, hit Robotnik and then glide, you'll glide through the boss and land on the boss platform! From here, you can just jump or spindash to hit the boss for the other seven hits.
Now for the inevitable question: What happens when you jump in the Egg-O-Matic? Some may say you'd fight both of Knuckles' bosses, or perhaps you'd only fight the tower boss as per Sonic's story. And a fair few of you aren't going to have a clue. In fact, there's quite a few bizarre happenings after you jump in - the cosmetic ones on the way to the boss platform I will leave you to find out for yourself.
Two additional things have happened, which you should spot as the boss appears. First is the appearance of the boss - everything except Eggrobo himself is glitched beyond belief. This is something reminiscent of your playing around with Debug mode... But this is only the beginning.
The other thing is far more prevalent, at least for us time attackers. Remember how, when you defeat the first boss, the timer stops? When the boss disappears off the screen, take a moment to look at the timer.
What did you notice? The timer never restarted.
Let me run that by you again.
The timer never restarted.
What does this mean? Well, it means that the time you finished the first boss is your final time! By association, it means you can take as long as you like with these two bosses for the same result (which is lucky, as you're likely to not have many rings at this point).
Why does it happen? Honestly, I don't know. My best guess would be:
* When you defeat the cannon boss in S3&K, there is a trigger that essentially says "stop the timer".
* When you arrive on the final boss platform, the timer is supposed to restart. However, of course, you're only meant to be here as Sonic and/or Tails, so the trigger to restart the timer only exists for these two characters. When Knuckles fights this boss, the timer is still running, so there's no trigger to make the timer restart. Therefore it remains stopped!
As such, you can take the last two bosses at your own pace, and as long as you don't die, you'll have the same time you had at the cannon boss. Nifty, eh?
And now for the usual analysis:
Time: 1:55
Analysis: There is so much improvement left in this time. The cannon boss was far from optimal, and there were little mistakes in the run - however, I don't see it being beaten for a while, because the jump up to the cannon boss is quite hard to aim and once there, it's also hard to execute the jump-glide for quick hits.
The Sonic Center v3.9
Copyright 2003-2011 by The Sonic Center Team.