Its been months since I tried this game again. This part is brutal without starting power ups. It seems like it would require some very heavy memorization and reaction. This was a brief practice session.
This is one of the extreme games in my backlog, along with Ghouls N Ghosts Ressurection on LEGEND mode and to a lesser degree, Super Mario Bros. 2 Japan on Famicom Disc System (The Lost Levels on SNES).
Once you get to the bottom of this area with the boss it gets INSANE. I got there before only with making save states and I didnt even know how to survive or damage the boss properly. Im still not sure if its possible without the starting power ups.