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

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Master Knight DH

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Published on July 4, 2019 8:27:55 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd9y0ftKuS8

Game:

Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II (1994)

Duration: 9:11

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

If Zoda's Revenge has a Wake Up Call Level, it's this. Rooms that are mandatory all kill rooms are catharsis in a scoring run, being a chance to vent your grievances upon enemies like the Skull Bugs, who behave again like Wild Boars; the Zombies, who force Psychic Shock Wave usage but don't have anything else going for them beyond minor speeding up when lined up with Mike; and the Max Mummies, who again are giants and seem to do their lunging if you get lined up with them so they have a decent allergy to diagonal fire.

Still, an enemy type can be just as troublesome to fight as they would be to avoid. Cobras prove this, as they have erratic enough movement that they can catch you easily if you get too close while throwing off your attacks. Pharoahs (the beaked walking humanoids who scream Native American stereotyping) also get special mention due to having movement that too can confound your attacks, and especially having a double shot fireball where the second shot is even fired individually and thus can home in on you. And of course, there's the kill room with the green Spiders--these pests have their fire be possible in any direction compared to their earlier brethren, and the last one in the room is capable of a nasty ambush if you aren't expecting it.

But the biggest hotspot enemy of all in this dungeon comes in a small package: Mini Mummies. These things are the definition of Fragile Speedster in these parts, and it shows. There's barely even one kill room with them and the 2 in them are mixed with a couple of Zombies, so we end up with a show of how they still aren't much better to take out. Otherwise, they also guard some locations where you have no choice but to put up fully with their random AND quick movement. You see me play Pac-Man against these headaches, and ain't that an analogy to bring up given that the Pac-Man ghosts have actually different AIs and clarity in what they're generally going to do. Too bad we don't get something like that so easily at all in multiplayer games such as Super Bash Sisters, or we'd have more people consider the active countermeasures against characters like Smash 4 Bayonetta from those countermeasures actually being functional against OTHER characters.

The real kicker, however, is the last room, not far after the Cobra puzzle room. You have to make a jump to stable land that's occupied by 2 Max Mummies and a Mini Mummy. More than that, you are forced to do this to avoid a trip into bottomless flooring upon taking this on, thanks to the rising/sinking platforms' layout preventing any chance of turning back. There are 2 ways onto stable ground, but the enemy density ensures that they both get covered. It'd be fine on a non-scoring run, just kill any of the enemies. But of course, finding out that the kills per penalty value actually is variable in Startropics 2, this dungeon having it at 3, isn't a free pass to get rid of the Mini Mummy; if I can evade the mess, I have to. He's not even occupying only 3 freaking tiles with the middle one of those tiles having to be traversed. No, he has a wide open space to work with. RNG is already an issue with Mini Mummies, but this is where it's at its worst.

It's so bad that I take the fight against Monster Mask cautiously, just to not have to put up with that mess again. Monster Mask is mercifully simplistic in general, so much so that my thought process being shot enough doing the fight to not recognize that the spread shot's subtle tell is Monster Mask suddenly stopping does little to make the fight hard. My real concern with Monster Mask is the Turns Red phase, which mercifully only triggers when Monster Mask is at 1/4 health or below, because during the Turns Red phase, Monster Mask will have the spreadshot fire TWICE. The best way to handle that, as I show, is to direct-dodge the first portion with walking, and then jump over the second set. Fortunately, Monster Mask being low on HP when that happens means he will end up dying soon and thus I won't have to deal with the double spreadshot too often.


..oh yeah. The cloaked Skeletons. They're basically like Dry Bones from the Super Mario games. Fortunately, since causing their collapse doesn't kill them, it doesn't work against your scoring.

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