Startropics 2: Zoda's Revenge - Mashing Miner No Damage Run

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Master Knight DH

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Published on July 6, 2019 5:13:42 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsoQw81hhBs

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Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II (1994)

Duration: 2:01

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This jackhole needs his own video. Just to enunciate how much beeswax he can spew on a given day.

To even make Mashing Miner approachable for a No Damage Run at all, you have to learn key technical aspects of the whole mess. First off, there is his spread debris attack from when he smashes at the ground. The directions of the debris are thankfully not random, though about half of them are virtually redundant as I'll get into. For the half that does matter, the angles are that the rocks hit are, from bottom-center, as follows in approximations: 30 clockwise, 60 clockwise, 15 counterclockwise, and 60 counterclockwise. The cardinal directions are of course safe unless you're too close to Miner without being in the air, and the simple diagonals have some slight safety factor as well. A little math can be bothersome to remember in the heat of the moment, of course, but it's better than being stuck thinking the whole thing is random. Since Miner's hammering stuns you even when you're in mid-air, you HAVE to make sure that you're either positioned where the rocks won't hit you, or jumping to where that won't happen. There's actually a glitch where you can prevent the stun, seemingly having to do by throwing out your weapon and jumping, but it seems to be a frame-perfect thing, which is just as well since it's well, you know, a glitch, even if Miner would deserve payback with the cheapness of his general battle.

The real killer is the boulders. In addition to unforgiving hitboxes, they actually are random, moreso than Miner's own movement, which at least is diagonal first then cardinal with the only deviation being set off by one of those movements being stopped by already being too near the edge of the field for the rolled movement to fully play out. The boulders do have a bias of moving toward Mike, so at least they can be baited to where you would want them, but they can change direction at any time they please, without rhyme or reason, and they WILL break the laws of physics to do this. This brings in a sense of luck any time you have to direct dodge them, and this does indeed include jumping. If the boulders feel contrarian, you WILL be caught even when you're jumping diagonally.

And the RNG fest has another trick up its sleeve as well: if you are ANYWHERE on the top 4 rows of the field when you get stunned by Miner's smashing, one of the boulders can spawn at the top of your column and roll down up to 3 rows before you can move again with any hope of dodging. This can get you hit unavoidably the moment Miner swings down his hammer, which is BARELY telegraphed by the boulders despawning. And I do mean barely because Mike can be forced into a bad position to escape the trapping that can result from this. I can't even just count down how long the boulders had been spawned because they are on a random timer as well, and it had seemed to cap at 10 seconds, but no, the boulders can actually last longer than that on occasion to catch you thinking to make use of it for more viable offense against Miner.

I suppose I could have made this easier on myself by using the Super Psychic Shock Wave with its 2 tile range advantage over the Dagger, making up for the 25% damage reduction, but I'm not doing that if I don't have to. Of course, the reason I'm uploading this is to make a point: Mashing Miner is already problematic without his level, which is going to have hotspots in its own right. This is doubly glaring because the only way to even practice against him on an actual NES, which doesn't provide something like savestates, is to wade through the rest of the given level every time you want a shot at him. And what a level Mashing Miner's will be, especially with him at the end.

If you think Mashing Miner would be a joke to Perfect Run anyway, try it yourself, because a video of this can only clarify so much.

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