Then There Were Six Days Remaining... · 11:10am Aug 9th, 2017
So my Sonic 3 & Knuckles 100% run continues, and I have already topped my high score from two years ago. But once I finished snatching the emeralds up and getting Perfects on all the special stages, my scoring avenues began to dry up. But this time, a user on the Sonic subreddit has pointed me to a little known, but highly risky trick:
If you defeat a boss with absolutely no time remaining, you are given a quite ridiculous bonus. But as veterans know, it's much harder said than done, as some bosses only have limited windows of vulnerability, and you have to bank on that final window being exactly at 9 minutes 59 seconds. Or do you?
For some bosses, there is a defeat animation where the seconds keep ticking. Mushroom Hill 2's boss is one of those; approximately five more seconds pass, and your character has to be through the final tree trunk before that timer stops ticking. So you have to perform your final hit within the first half-second of 9:54.
Not only that...
Flying Battery 1 also netted me my final Super Emerald, and my 14th and final Perfect bonus, and unlocking Tails' super state for use, sapping 1 ring per second.
But not all super forms are equal. Where Sonic can double jump with over 50 rings to his heart's content as long as he has an elemental shield, Tails and Knuckles don't have that luxury, and ANY protected or unprotected double jump over 50 rings will activate the super state, while retaining the ring-magnetism of the Lightning Shield, or the drowning immunity of the Water Shield.
Put simply, after 50 rings, Tails cannot fly without sacrificing rings.
So the remaining levels are going to be interesting. I'm at 1.5 million points currently in Flying Battery 2, so let's see how far I can get. I'm not betting on 2 million, but hey, you never know.
Surprisingly cool to hear how this is going, speaking as someone who loved the sonic series
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Yep, I'm doing this because I'm super-impatient for Sonic Mania next week.
Ooh, wow! All 7 Super Emeralds by Flying Battery 1? You must've scoured those first three acts extensively. Not that I should be surprised by that; Lightning Shield and Star Posts have been your friends during this high score run.
As far as preventing Super Tails from eating your ring bonus, the only suggestion I can think of is that entering a Bonus Stage cancels your Super form. But you already knew that, and Star Posts are a little too few and far in between to be that reliable.
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Yep, I believe that's the first time that it hasn't taken me until Sandopolis 1 to get all of them. There were more rings in Mushroom Hill than I recalled.
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Figured as much with Mushroom Hill. As for me, I've saw those two other Special Stage Rings in Flying Battery via those level maps, so I think I'll abuse the shit out of them when I go back to S3&K. Flying Battery, meet Super forms!
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I'm beginning to wonder how lucky I could get with the 9:59 bonuses as Super Tails.
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Worst case scenario, you lose one life and 10 minutes (not counting bonus stage time) of your IRL life.
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And the rings I gathered. That's the second biggest bonus, and these levels don't let you backtrack very far.
But I think it's the only way I could possibly crack 2 million without the Launch Base Alarm exploit.