Time - How to land 12 hits
Submitted by Parax
Okay, so I recently did a 0:42 run on Death Egg. While I was researching to try to learn the strat I had a hard time finding some good text instructions on how it's done - so I figured I'd write a more in-depth guide on how a 42 is achieved now that I know how. Special thanks to werster who gave me a lot of tips that helped me pull it off.
The beginning is pretty easy. Start by doing a 6-tap spindash and jump, then let go of right so you don't trigger the speed cap. Next Silver Sonic will appear. Simply charge a spindash under him to get the first four hits, then spindash across the room before he can hit you. He'll spindash to the left; jump over him and try to stand as close as possible (you can line this up consistently by using the tiles on the wall in the background - try to be to the right of the center of the square right in front of where Silver Sonic will stop and you won't get hit). At this point, if you're playing as Tails, after he uncurls you can spindash through him, then charge another spindash to land the last three hits optimally. If you're playing as Sonic, that strat will kill you, so you'll need to jump on him and bounce for the last four hits - this is a tad bit harder, but it's still pretty easy and if done well it's not any slower than the Tails method. Then spindash to the right - if you've been optimal to this point, then you'll want to release your spindash right at about a mid-17ish, then immediately do another 6-tap after the door opens, jump, and run right.
Now here's the tricky part. After you touch the wall on the right, you'll want to line up correctly, so edge just a tiny bit left - I find that you want the tip of Sonic's quill to be a couple pixels to the left of the rightmost brown pillar in the background. Now, the trick on this boss to get a 42 is to land 12 hits before he leaves the ground. This can be very tough to pull off, but it's entirely doable on console - I recommend practicing on an emulator using savestates beforehand to get the hang of how the strat works, though. The main thing that makes it hard is you need to constantly hit him in the back - if you touch his foot, his arm, or the flame on his back, you will die, and every hit requires a careful balance to go right between all these things without touching any of them.
The first hit is easy - simply jump into him and hit him as soon as he becomes vulnerable. The second hit is a little harder - you'll want to delay your jump slightly so that you hit him a few frames after he becomes vulnerable, otherwise you'll get killed on hit 3. As soon as you land from hit 2, jump again. Start lightly tapping left as you near the peak of your jump to avoid the flame on his back, then after you land the hit, hold right until you touch the wall to land safely back on the ground.
Hit 3 is the hardest part - after that, you need to run under the flame and jump to land hit 4, and from here until hit 9 you alternate between going under and jumping over the flame. This needs to be fairly precise to be done without getting killed. This also needs to be done fairly quickly, because you need to land hit 8 right before he takes a step to the left, and if he's too far into that step the gap between his foot and the flame will be too small for you to be able to make it. If you manage to land hit 8, you're almost home free - jump over the flame again for hit 9.
Three hits to go. After landing safely from hit 9, walk to the left and stop right before his foot. This can be slightly tricky because you need to stand in between the flame and the arm, which requires you to be standing pretty close to his foot - you also don't have a whole lot of time to line up here before he takes off, so it needs to be done quickly as well. If you manage to get it though, then simply jump once his body moves back over to the right far enough to hit it, then jump in place two more times for the final two hits.
One thing left - as soon as he dies, spindash to the right side of the screen and then start charging up another spindash. This part is thankfully very very easy, because you don't need to worry about timing at all - just charge up the spindash and the game will automatically release it when the screen unlocks.
And that's that! If you've pulled off everything correctly, you should have a 42 or maybe even a 41 - if you messed up slightly you could have a second or two slower, but that's okay. I recommend recording your run, because the game doesn't really give you time to check what time you got - that, and it's not unheard of for the timer to tick over on one of the last visible frames. I do think this is a strat that more people could pull off, though, so I hope this guide encourages some of you to try it out.
The beginning is pretty easy. Start by doing a 6-tap spindash and jump, then let go of right so you don't trigger the speed cap. Next Silver Sonic will appear. Simply charge a spindash under him to get the first four hits, then spindash across the room before he can hit you. He'll spindash to the left; jump over him and try to stand as close as possible (you can line this up consistently by using the tiles on the wall in the background - try to be to the right of the center of the square right in front of where Silver Sonic will stop and you won't get hit). At this point, if you're playing as Tails, after he uncurls you can spindash through him, then charge another spindash to land the last three hits optimally. If you're playing as Sonic, that strat will kill you, so you'll need to jump on him and bounce for the last four hits - this is a tad bit harder, but it's still pretty easy and if done well it's not any slower than the Tails method. Then spindash to the right - if you've been optimal to this point, then you'll want to release your spindash right at about a mid-17ish, then immediately do another 6-tap after the door opens, jump, and run right.
Now here's the tricky part. After you touch the wall on the right, you'll want to line up correctly, so edge just a tiny bit left - I find that you want the tip of Sonic's quill to be a couple pixels to the left of the rightmost brown pillar in the background. Now, the trick on this boss to get a 42 is to land 12 hits before he leaves the ground. This can be very tough to pull off, but it's entirely doable on console - I recommend practicing on an emulator using savestates beforehand to get the hang of how the strat works, though. The main thing that makes it hard is you need to constantly hit him in the back - if you touch his foot, his arm, or the flame on his back, you will die, and every hit requires a careful balance to go right between all these things without touching any of them.
The first hit is easy - simply jump into him and hit him as soon as he becomes vulnerable. The second hit is a little harder - you'll want to delay your jump slightly so that you hit him a few frames after he becomes vulnerable, otherwise you'll get killed on hit 3. As soon as you land from hit 2, jump again. Start lightly tapping left as you near the peak of your jump to avoid the flame on his back, then after you land the hit, hold right until you touch the wall to land safely back on the ground.
Hit 3 is the hardest part - after that, you need to run under the flame and jump to land hit 4, and from here until hit 9 you alternate between going under and jumping over the flame. This needs to be fairly precise to be done without getting killed. This also needs to be done fairly quickly, because you need to land hit 8 right before he takes a step to the left, and if he's too far into that step the gap between his foot and the flame will be too small for you to be able to make it. If you manage to land hit 8, you're almost home free - jump over the flame again for hit 9.
Three hits to go. After landing safely from hit 9, walk to the left and stop right before his foot. This can be slightly tricky because you need to stand in between the flame and the arm, which requires you to be standing pretty close to his foot - you also don't have a whole lot of time to line up here before he takes off, so it needs to be done quickly as well. If you manage to get it though, then simply jump once his body moves back over to the right far enough to hit it, then jump in place two more times for the final two hits.
One thing left - as soon as he dies, spindash to the right side of the screen and then start charging up another spindash. This part is thankfully very very easy, because you don't need to worry about timing at all - just charge up the spindash and the game will automatically release it when the screen unlocks.
And that's that! If you've pulled off everything correctly, you should have a 42 or maybe even a 41 - if you messed up slightly you could have a second or two slower, but that's okay. I recommend recording your run, because the game doesn't really give you time to check what time you got - that, and it's not unheard of for the timer to tick over on one of the last visible frames. I do think this is a strat that more people could pull off, though, so I hope this guide encourages some of you to try it out.
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