Startropics 2: Zoda's Revenge - Chapter 3 Dungeon 1 Perfect Run

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Master Knight DH

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Published on July 3, 2019 11:50:07 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm12dUl26_A

Game:

Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II (1994)

Duration: 6:53

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Perfect Run conditions:
-No damage taken
-No secondary weapon usage unless deemed necessary
-No kills unless deemed necessary

I think I like this level. It's actually decent at teaching the player the pros and cons of diagonal attacking. It's not perfect, mind you, and certainly is rather quicker to call out overreliance on diagonal attacking than it should be, but given that it does have the level start out with Scorpions who fire shots in cardinal directions, I'm willing to forgive the game making the room right after involve a Bandit who is big AND fast, capitalizing on the seemingly reduced range that is likely about 70% in either cardinal direction for the diagonal--close to the square root of 1/2, for those who don't get it. There's also an increase in the amount of platforming involved, and it get more actively mixed with the action. Yum-Yum's cave didn't have too much, but here, enemies such as the aforementioned Scorpions are waiting to pull ambush shenanigans forcing compromises. There are still workaround routes, of course, so that does help in evading them, even if this time around, you do have to work for them.

There's a couple of rooms with Lumps, which are camouflaged enemies that are erratic mixed in with a complimentary moderate pace of speed, and the second one is a type kill room, but your type target isn't the Lumps, oh no, because that would make things so much easier. It's the Hedgehogs, who react to being lined up with Mike by doing an invincible roll until reaching a wall. Since the Lumps also trace Mike a decent bit, it can get annoying to hit just the Hedgehogs--yes, Tink's Axe, never mind the Dagger that you could have instead at this point via a trading outpost in the overworld that's found via secret passage, actually one-shots the Lumps, so a misfire has an easy time causing an unneeded kill increment. What I figure to do to get around this is have my baiting the Hedgehogs happen where their shift in location will isolate them and make them easy to clobber free of charge.

Oh, and by the way, that next room having a Scorpion that I kill? Somebody could always try to confirm for me if it's possible to slip by via active timing, but I guarantee that RNG is too unlikely to play nice, and I already have the Scorpion right after to worry about as it is, because THAT thing even forces me to jump twice in succession to not get clipped in my maneuver against it. Since the minimal number of kills for the level is an even number and this level (and apparently every other one in Startropics 2) has the kill penalty increment every 2 kills, my scoring doesn't get damaged at all by the aforementioned kill.

After a bit more action platforming is Mama Scorpion, or should I say Mama Bear Scorpion. Other Youtube videos of this fight has her use her spreadshot--this video is proof of concept that it's pure reaction to her children being killed, which of course never happens here because I hit only Mama (Bear) Scorpion--Tink's Axe actually kills the children in only 1 hit if you need to know. Of course, you're probably wondering how I'm able to do it. It's the same reason the fight lasts about 3 minutes: that I continually bait the children where I can, preferring them to cluster in an out-of-way location so that I can knock off Mama (Bear) Scorpion's 96 HPs where I can. It's still claustrophobic, so my advice is remember to use jumping as a burst evasion option and consider saying "toro" to a given one of the children.

And by the way, Mama (Bear) Scorpion having her children participate in combat suggests to me that the whole lot of them are just territorial wild animals who Mike has to get by to begin with.

Also, I should mention while it's fresh on my mind that if Startropics 1 could disable the kill penalty updating in certain rooms, I don't see why Startropics 2 couldn't do the same for Yum-Yum's room at least. But at least Mama (Bear) Scorpion's room not having it disabled is understandable.


...wait a minute. The whole story of dealing with this dungeon gets justified by a Super Mario Bros. reference. Just...wow.

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