Defeating Harpuia with a Single Shield Boomerang Throw
56As if there weren’t enough methods of dismantling Harpuia, today I’ll be subjecting him to the nightmare that is a Shield Boomerang-obsessed Zero. I’ll be tacking both his Z1 and Z2 incarnations under the single-throw stipulation. The battles play out quite differently, despite featuring the same boss. Here are the details.
It should come as no surprise that the Z1 battle is significantly more consistent between the two. Harpuia’s rudimentary AI in the first game means that developing a movement loop isn’t much of a struggle. However, make no mistake; the ostensibly simple nature of said loop is highly deceiving—the precision required to execute it properly is excruciating.
I start the battle by waiting for a split second before performing a jumping upward toss of the Shield. This is done by releasing the charge first, then quickly jumping up afterward. Normally, throwing the Shield while airborne will have it arc downward. With this technique, you can reverse its direction, sending it sky high. Catching Harpuia with the Shield immediately, jumping over him, and then jumping over the Shield twice is the mandatory opening move that establishes the foundation for the loop.
From here, you can think of the challenge as more of a precision jumping gauntlet than a real fight. Ten loops are required to win. Each loop comprises the following sequence: lure the Shield into Harpuia while he’s busy slashing at ghosts, jump over the Shield as Harpuia gets stunned, and then barely squeeze in a second jump around the Shield before getting struck by Harpuia’s first slash. Viewers who either pause the video at the correct moment or parse frame-by-frame will notice several moments where I’m mere pixels away from collecting the Shield or taking damage; the margin for error is incredibly slim. Furthermore, taking contact damage from an improper jump over Harpuia or getting caught by the backswing of one of his slashes is incredibly common and frustrating. Unfortunately, to make this victory a reality, there’s nothing you can do other than practice. It’s a purely execution-driven challenge, not a tactical one.
Z2 Harpuia presents a challenge that is almost the polar opposite of the first; this battle revels in uncertainty. Harpuia’s defensive upgrades in Z2 present a rather large issue in a normal fight, let alone during one where your method of offense is akin to a trapeze artist flipping around a highly magnetic frisbee.
The fact that Harpuia has access to myriad options after getting stunned in Z2 means that you can’t settle into a rhythm like you can in Z1; strict as it may be, that loop never makes you change your position to accommodate different attacks. Z2 demands that you learn several distinct movements to keep the Shield’s path in accordance with Harpuia’s. An incredibly aggravating aspect is that, if you deviate your path even slightly between attempts, the Shield can and will behave erratically. This can result in Harpuia suffering knockback in the wrong direction due to the Shield striking him slightly off beat, or even worse, anomalous behavior such as the Shield deciding to randomly fly away of its volition with complete disregard for the laws of physics.
It’s a good thing that this fight requires only eight hits compared to the eleven of the first, because the aforementioned nuances transform into major problems very quickly. Once again, I begin the fight with an upward jumping throw, but here, I time it such that it hits Harpuia near the very top of the screen—a crucial element of the pattern manipulation for this fight. A dive and an attempt to spawn missiles are what follow, both of which require exact movement to ensure that Harpuia is caught at the correct moment. After that, a simple dash jump over Harpuia’s Mirage Dash sends the fight into its second phase.
At some point, Harpuia will inevitably use his EX Skill. The only sensible way to deal with this is to nip it in the bud before it gets out of hand. With some sagaciously-spaced skipping, you can guide the Shield high enough to send Harpuia plummeting down from the heavens while also avoiding the descending Sonic Booms. The problem here is that, not only do you need to make sure you actually hit him, but you also need to hit him so that he recoils away from the edge of the screen. This isn’t even remotely close to being a dependable strategy; it’s laughably inconsistent. It’s one of those moments that’s so incredibly precise that it may as well be luck, even if it objectively isn’t.
Even after you win that lottery, you have to avoid dash jumping over Harpuia too early after he lands; be mindful of his invincibility frames. Following that, a pair of Mirage Dash dodges will see you through to the end of this very tricky fight with the leader of the Guardians.
Timestamps:
00:00 - Z1 Harpuia
00:33 - Z2 Harpuia
Thanks for watching! Any questions or comments you may have are welcome as usual.
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