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Howdy! I'm Mint Vanilla, and you have enabled my commentary. Hope you enjoy!
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████████████████████ STAGE 1 START ████████████████████
There is a hidden 1up in the bottom-left corner (hidden from view by the trash receptacle in the foreground).
You have to quickly run left and grab it, or else the screen will scroll to the right.
I'll be skipping all 1ups in the game, just to see how many lives I get by score alone. 1ups don't give any points, anyway.
(I reach 9 lives a little after the beginning of stage 7.)
If Max grabs an enemy from behind, he can do an Atomic Drop (jump+attack).
It's one of the strongest moves in the game: over half a life bar of damage in a single hit.
Even better is that any enemies directly underneath will also be damaged by that much.
Very useful if you can get behind an enemy. You'll be seeing Atomic Drops throughout the run.
It even comes with an awesome sound effect!
Another useful move is his directed special attack: Thunder Tackle (forward+special).
And his stationary special attack is the Knuckle Bomb (special button, no direction).
Stationary specials make you invincible for a second, useful for escaping enemies.
And Thunder Tackle is great as a combo finisher or for some quick moderate damage.
As long as the meter at the top says OK, special attacks do not cost any health.
Here, I'll be stealing a pipe from this Donovan, just for a little variety.
Max's running attack with the pipe, if positioned correctly, hits twice for a lot of damage.
With over half a life bar of total damage, it's comparable to the Atomic Drop.
However, enemies tend to avoid it, so as fun as it is, usefulness is limited.
I let Galsias/Donovans hit me once, making them stand still and easier to hit.
Pipes normally aren't worth using in Mania; it's just faster to use your own attacks.
Okay, enough fun with the pipe. I have to pick up the knife in order to drop the pipe.
This is because I use the SOR1 item option, so I can't throw away any weapons except knives.
I use that option because I don't want to accidentally lose my weapon in certain stages.
SOR2's item option forces me to drop my weapon while grabbing, which I'd rather not.
And SOR3's item health, while fun, isn't going to help me much in this run, either.
That second barrel up there is explosive, by the way.
I bait out this Donovan here, and then it's time for the first miniboss.
I elbow drop, then combo into Atomic Drop. Sometimes, the Galsia will walk underneath and kill himself.
Not this time, I guess. Oh well. One more Atomic Drop just because I can.
That silly knife on the ground almost makes me miss picking up my food...
If you look at the top-left, the S icon does not have "X1" next to it, which means police is unavailable.
Police is extremely useful, damaging all enemies on screen for almost one full life bar.
You start every stage with one use of police; however, it can't be used indoors, such as this bar.
I won't be using police at all in this run, though it would help a lot, especially on the stage 7 elevator.
But I keep police enabled in the options, so I can get the 10,000-point bonus at the end of a level.
I use my standing combo here: two chops, a hook, grab, two knee kicks, and bear punch.
It takes off nearly one-and-a-half life bars. However, it's slow, leaving Max vulnerable to other enemies.
I was trying to grab that Y.Signal, but I jumped too early. Oh well, at least I elbow dropped him.
I punch these guys to the left so that I can kill them before aggroing the rest of the enemies.
While I go for the Signal, a Donovan interrupts me, so I Thunder Tackle them both instead.
The rest of them are kind enough to line up so that I, Mint, can knock them all down.
The stairs back there lead to an alternate route through the game.
I will be sticking with the standard SOR2 route in this run.
My bread-and-butter combo with Max is two chops, a hook, grab and body slam (jump+attack).
This combo does enough damage to kill most of the lesser enemies like Galsias and Donovans.
Since the upcoming miniboss is alone, I use a more damaging combo against her.
Two chops, a hook, grab, two knee kicks, bear punch, and cancel into Thunder Tackle.
Total damage is a little over one-and-a-half life bars.
Max's slide goes under Electra's whip and also hits her, setting her up for another combo.
Electra rarely drops a sapphire worth 750 points. Not this time, I guess.
▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ STAGE 1 BOSS ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄
The boss of this stage is Barbon, the bartender who ran away inside the bar area.
I prefer to get rid of all of his lackeys first, before I take on the boss.
I have to admit, I kill these enemies unusually fast. They typically give me more trouble than this.
After that, I demonstrate what not to do and run straight into Barbon's foot.
...Twice. Yeah, he has some pretty insane range with his kicks.
My strategy involves knocking him down first. Then slide and, you guessed it, Atomic Drop.
It's a fairly reliable strategy with proper timing; the hard part is knocking him down toward the right wall in the first place.
But once I do, I can just Atomic Drop him into oblivion. Sometimes he'll escape, but generally he'll stay put and die quickly.
An alternative strategy is to go up and let him punch you, then quickly run at him for a free grab.
Either strategy will get rid of him quickly; I just like Atomic Drops better.
And just like that, I already have three stars for my blitz. Sweet!
████████████████████ STAGE 2 START ████████████████████
Alrighty, so I walk to the right, and the Galsia usually just runs into my attack.
The second barrel from the top is explosive. The bottom barrel has nothing, in case you're wondering.
I tend to stay at the bottom of the screen to avoid most of the bikes.
On Mania, enemies will try to flank you, so you always have to watch out for that.
I run at this spot here, and sometimes I'm lucky enough for a free grab on a Galsia.
In the Streets of Rage games, all characters have a back attack to hit enemies behind them.
Max's back attack is a mule kick. I try to show it here, but I completely miss.
Mule kicking is useful for Max in the original Streets of Rage 2, but not so much here.
With SOR3 pause delay, Max can easily run up and grab enemies instead.
But for fun, I advance at this spot, just so I can mule kick two of these bikes.
Bikers on motorcycles usually have nearly no health, so almost any attack will kill them.
Interestingly, those two bikes I kicked earlier went offscreen and never exploded.
I guess they disappear as soon as they leave the screen?
I suppose that's good if I ever run towards an offscreen bike that should've exploded. Like right here.
I prefer to get rid of the Signals first, though it wouldn't be a bad idea to kill the pipe-wielding biker first.
So this must be the truck that Barbon mentioned in the previous cutscene. Let's jump in!
I always thought this was funny: a lone warrior poised to do battle while the biker fanclub roots in the background.
After killing him, I stand here ready to pummel two of the bikers as soon as they're done fist pumping.
Overall, not bad. A swarm of bikers (or a swarm of anything, really) can be real jerks on Mania.
This guy here is called Trucker. He's not from the original games, but a new enemy that has been added to the remake.
We'll end up fighting him later. But didn't we enter the truck from back there? Then where did he come from...?
There's a hidden 1up in the top-left corner (can't see it because the truck is blocking the view). Grab it before moving on.
In this game, you can execute a dash attack, called a "blitz". It's done by double-tapping forward and pressing the attack button.
Blitzes can level up, from 0 up to 3. See the stars underneath Max's number of lives? That's his current level for his blitz.
Blitz-1 is usually a longer-ranged version of blitz-0. Blitz-2 is a different move, and blitz-3 is usually an upgraded version of that.
Blitzes level up for every 40,000 points you get. If you die, then your stars go down by one, and you have to get another 40,000 points.
The game also has a Special Combo button. By pressing this button and then inputting a command, you can use any blitz.
Here, I'll show a tactic that I'll be using throughout the run (though more so in the later stages).
With Max, if you press the Special Combo button and then Down+Forward, you'll execute his blitz-2, regardless of stars.
I can pretty much spam this as much as I want. Max's blitz-2 is extremely useful for pinning down an enemy until he's dead.
His blitz-3 is slightly worse because he's vulnerable for a moment, unlike his blitz-2 where he's invincible right away.
I want Trucker's weapon for the boss, so I preferably want to kill him in one combo so he doesn't have a chance to pick it back up.
I could've taken his pipe and killed them all with it, but that would've been slower (and probably more boring to watch).
Like in stage 1, I let enemies hit me once so that I can hit twice with Max's unique blitz attack with the pipe.
I need to get rid of all these Surger enemies before triggering the boss, so that I can use my strategy.
▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ STAGE 2 BOSS ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄
Carefully trigger the boss by inching forward. If you go too far to the right, then additional enemies will be spawned.
So, my strategy is probably easier to show than explain. With the pipe's range, I can pretty much knock Jet away indefinitely.
I line up Max's shadow to be slightly above Jet's shadow, so that my pipe hits more easily.
This is the reason why I use the SOR shadow option instead of Reflected: it's much easier to track aerial enemies.
Without the pipe, I would've used Max's standing jump attack. Still very easy, but not as fast as the pipe.
████████████████████ STAGE 3 START ████████████████████
Ah, the amusement park, one of my favorite levels from Streets of Rage 2 (along with stage 5, the ship level).
A large part of that is because of the music (Dreamer) for this area. Definitely one of the best songs in my opinion.
Really, the entire soundtrack for Streets of Rage 2 is amazing.
And the remixes that were composed for this remake are incredible.
Major kudos to the guys responsible for this soundtrack.
At the end of this section are two boxing kangaroos Roo and Victy, along with their trainer Bruce.
I feel bad if I kill the kangaroos (even though they're trying to kill me), so I usually try to save them if I can.
If you kill Bruce and not the kangaroos, you can get gold bars from each of them.
It's tricky, though. As soon as Bruce is dead and the kangaroos are offscreen, you'll automatically go to the next area.
But it's very possible to get all the items. What I do is try to knock down one of the kangaroos to the right just as Bruce dies.
The other kangaroo will drop his items and run, and while you're picking them up, the first kangaroo will do the same.
Here, I manage to pick up both gold bars. I miss a choker, but it's only 15 pts, compared to 10,000 pts for gold bars.
Anyway, you get the idea: try to knock back one of them to the right to buy some time to pick up the items.
I actually have picked up all four drops before. It's not overly difficult, though some luck is needed.
I like all the different arcade cabinets here. It's a very nice touch. In the original game, all of them were Bare Knuckle cabinets.
The room looks very nice, too. A modern update from the old wooden planks in the original Streets of Rage 2.
I've always liked the room's layout, mainly due to the wall. It's easy to trap enemies against the wall and just beat them to death.
Don't neglect the apple here. Any of these enemies can pick it up if they're low on health.
Also, don't underestimate the Signals. They swarm everywhere and throw you, slide into you, or punch you from behind.
There's a knife-wielding enemy here that I don't want running around, so I kill him first before moving on.
I was a little surprised when I killed all three enemies here in one combo. It rarely goes as smoothly as that.
After a period of time, another one will come down from the stairs.
And then one more from the left. His third punch has a bit of delay, so I just run straight at him and go for a grab.
A Galsia always drops from the ceiling by himself in this exact spot, with another one to the right.
After this, a few more guys will show up, starting with one dropping in from the right. I stand here ready to hit him with blitz-2.
I then use blitz-3 to keep slamming him down as he gets up.
This type of enemy actually gets up slower than other enemies, so spamming blitz-2 would be too fast.
Sure, I could just delay my attacks a bit, but it's easier for me to spam something instead of having to worry about timing.
These guys can block, so it's easier to knock them down and then grab them as they get up.
Next up is the pirate ship. This will likely be the first place that new players will notice how unfair some enemies can be.
Case in point: ninjas. They are some of the cheapest enemies in the game because they're invincible in almost anything they do.
I usually kill that green guy earlier, but I didn't this time for some reason. I totally didn't expect him to go for the apple.
Oh well, no great loss. I actually don't need much health for stage 3.
There's another 1up in the second box. This is the third 1up on this route so far.
Enemies can grab 1ups as well, but they don't gain any benefit from them. They simply drop them when they die.
You can see a ninja hanging in the top-right corner. You definitely want to kill the other enemies before taking him on.
This is especially important here because that ninja has a sword, giving him a high-damage ranged attack while other enemies distract you.
So first, I bait him to swing his sword at me. Then I slide into him and knock him down to make him drop his sword.
Then I try to position myself so that he'll run straight at me, where I'm waiting to combo him to death.
After he's gone, then I can go for the second ninja. Without other enemies to worry about, I can just combo him right away.
Max does so much damage that I don't have to worry about their crazy invincibility frames since I just kill them in one combo.
Especially for that second ninja who carried a kunai with him. They can launch themselves across the screen with a kunai.
Combined with naturally high speed, a ninja with a kunai is extremely hard to hit without defensive specials.
When fighting these guys who jump around a lot, keep an eye on them as they like to throw fire or axes across the screen at you.
In front of the creepy-looking alien house, there's a miniboss fight against Beano (a clone of Jack from stage 1) and two whip girls.
You'll want to play a little more defensively here as they can easily overwhelm you with their ranged attacks.
This is a good spot to use a police special if you have one.
Totally didn't expect one of the girls to pick up the apple. I didn't even know they were able to pick up items.
I like being able to slide under his thrown knives. And once again, Max provides the overkill.
Now entering: the alien house.
The blue egg to the right has full health recovery, which is why I didn't care about the lost apple earlier.
The second egg has a katana, which I'll be using throughout the rest of the stage. Max is very good with swords.
Be careful when opening these eggs, though. They explode and can hurt you.
What makes Max so good with swords is the fact that he can hit enemies behind him.
See how Max lifts his katana behind him before he swings it in front? That can actually hit enemies.
This is very useful, considering that enemies tend to flank you in Mania.
Hitting behind Max is instant as well, compared to a small delay when hitting in front.
Unfortunately, I mistime my attack and drop the katana. And while going after the Signal, I forget where I dropped it.
It's pretty frustrating that I can't see it due to the foreground blocking my view.
Luckily, I find the katana by accident, only to drop it again...
In Streets of Rage games, weapons automatically disappear after they've been dropped three times.
This katana has been dropped twice, which means I cannot drop it again if I want to keep it.
The reason I want it is for this miniboss. Vehelits is much easier with the katana than using regular attacks.
Vehelits recoils after every hit, so it's impossible to combo it. The katana does high damage in one hit, making it ideal.
Unfortunately, I lose the katana here, which stinks because I just needed one more hit.
Vehelits is annoying to hit when there's another enemy. If it's alone, then it's actually pretty easy to hit with jump attacks.
When it dies, it leaves a hole in the wall, which leads to an alternate area that's based off of the Game Gear version of SOR2.
There is a hidden 1up at the bottom of the screen, directly down from the hole in the wall.
There are two ninjas here before the boss. Like before, the first one has a sword and the second one has a kunai.
I kill this guy quickly, then rush to get the sword. I can easily trap the second ninja against the eggs with the sword.
▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ STAGE 3 BOSS ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄
So this is the other reason why I wanted a sword for this area: the boss Zamza is ridiculously easy with a sword.
Simply put, slash him with the sword. Then stand about a sword's length in front of him. As soon as he's up, slash him again.
This works because Zamza tries to slide or spin at me (or jump away) from that distance, but I hit him just before he does.
I think his spin might have some invincibility frames, so I'm ready to use my special if I need to.
If I didn't have the sword, then I'd try to bait him into using his anti-air attack (a sort of slashing uppercut).
Then I'd run back a bit to avoid it, and use blitz-2 on him. Run back to avoid his anti-air again, and repeat.
It's a good strategy for the rematch in stage 8, where there are no swords to use.
Either way, Zamza is very easy. The sword just makes the fight a lot faster.
████████████████████ STAGE 4 START ████████████████████
Shortly after the stage begins, a Signal will run right into me. I don't even have to move or dodge at all.
Incidentally, if I didn't do anything at all, he would have thrown me to the right.
So this is the baseball stadium that Blaze mentioned in the intro cutscene before stage 1.
Apparently, Mr. X funded the construction of this stadium to make himself look good to the public.
Is the stadium a cover for something else? I guess that's what we're here to investigate.
The are leading up to the stadium is filled with the usual thugs: Galsias, Donovans, Signals.
I'm liking the signs, though. Do! BASE BALL! It's like Boo!
One thing you'll notice is that there are a lot of pipes in this stage: four pipes, as well as one baseball bat.
As hinted in the previous cutscene, Adam is great with bats, as well as pipes.
If you use Adam, you'll definitely have some fun in this stage.
Max is also great with pipes if you use his dash attack with it to hit twice for massive damage.
I decide to just use his normal combos in this stage, though.
A karate guy drops from the sky here, so be careful of that.
A couple of new enemies show up here. They are actually not from SoR2, but were added here for the remake.
They can lunge at you with their katanas, giving them very long range. They can also block your attacks.
Enemies can't block grabs, so they're still no match for Max's blitz-2.
And once they're knocked down, they (and most enemies) are very easy to grab as they get up.
Here's the baseball bat, the only one on this route. There are more of them on other routes.
Max can't slam the bat like he can with a pipe, so it's pretty useless for him when his combos do a lot more damage.
Swords are the best weapons worth using with Max (and a few other characters who are good with swinging weapons).
I take on enemies one at a time here. I don't want to lose too much health in this area.
The box that I didn't break here has a knife. Pretty worthless for Max, but not bad for a few characters.
Skate is especially good with a knife; he lunges at enemies, and he's completely invincible while doing so.
Here, I want to take out the two enemies before going any farther.
There are two whip girls ahead, and I'd rather not fight them with these guys around.
I do the same thing I did in stage 1: bait them into using their whip, then slide and combo them.
Make sure not to stand next to a whip girl as she gets up, or else she'll immediatelly counter with a jump kick.
There's an apple in the box, so I'm not too worried about taking a little bit of damage.
There's also an apple inside the middle box here. Unfortunately, there's no more food until the boss.
In a two-player game, there actually would've been another apple here inside the third box.
I inch my way slowly here, getting rid of these lesser enemies before facing two fat guys.
As Max, I pretty much slam the fat guys into each other.
With one of them gone, I can freely Atomic Drop the other one.
A hidden elevator that leads underground. What a surprise, Mr. X was hiding something after all.
This elevator is actually pretty dangerous. Swarms of enemies drop in, and you can't control when they appear.
So it's a good idea to play a little more defensively here.
Karate guys will also drop in from above, and they will kick you if you're standing under them, so be wary of that.
Of course, when one of them is alone, Max can go ahead and pull off his massive damage combo.
There are six waves of enemies in this elevator. (The second wave was the lone enemy by himself.)
All waves besides the second have Galsias and Donovans. The fourth and sixth waves add karate guys.
You have to be careful: if one enemy hits you, it's likely that other enemies will gang up on you.
Like here. After using my special, I end up letting them hit me again, requiring another special to escape.
Just like that, half my health is gone in 10 seconds flat.
Elevators in the Streets of Rage games tend to be dangerous because of that reason, especially on Mania.
And what's at the bottom of this elevator? A secret underground arena containing the boss, of course.
▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ STAGE 4 BOSS ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄
Abadede is the boss of stage 4, and he is a monster of a boss.
One hit from him can easily take off an entire third of your health.
To start off, I slide into him to attempt a grab. If successful, I would have Bear Punched him into a Thunder Tackle.
My strategy for this fight: stay on the opposite side of the screen. When he comes my way, slide.
He'll move back in order to avoid it, and then he just stands still. Run up and Thunder Tackle him.
At least it usually works like that. Sometimes he won't stay in one spot. Then I just improvise.
Still, the strategy is fairly reliable enough to be worth using.
I've had runs where it worked perfectly; Abadede fully cooperated, and I ended the fight very quickly.
And that included the initial grab (which I'm kind of disappointed it didn't work this run).
Doesn't seem to be going as smoothly this time, but at least I haven't been hit by him yet.
Abadede hits like a truck and could kill me in as few as three moves.
If he does try to rush at me, my slide goes right under him, so it's a relatively safe strategy.
Another good thing is that my special meter fills up just as I'm ready to Thunder Tackle him again.
So I don't have to worry about sacrificing any health in order to maintain this strategy.
Since it's almost over, I let him hit me once so that I can finish him off with an Atomic Drop.
That is a lot of health to lose from just one hit by him, though.
████████████████████ STAGE 5 START ████████████████████
And here we go into the second half of the game.
Overall, stage 5 is pretty difficult: a significant jump from 1-4, but not as difficult as 7-8 in my opinion.
I'll be using the pipe from this guy in this section of the ship, just for some variety.
Truth be told, it would be faster to just kill enemies with Max's combos.
I'll be once again using Max's unique attack with pipes: slamming them into the ground.
With Max's range with pipes, it's pretty effective against enemies like Heart.
I simply knock away the other two since I don't want to miss hitting Heart...
...like that. Fat guys do a lot of damage if you let them.
To be honest, if I weren't using the pipe, I'd most likely be done with this already.
And then the other guy steals my apple. Not that I needed it, but still...
I think this may actually be the first time Heart did not die last.
Like in previous stages, I let enemies hit me once so they don't run while I kill them with the pipe.
If you're a veteran, you're probably thinking that I should be conserving health for the kickboxers later.
Normally, I'd agree. Kickboxers are total jerks in this game and in the original SoR2, especially on Mania.
They tend to block your attacks, then run up and combo you extremely quickly.
It's very difficult to react to their attacks because they're so fast.
However, I have a strategy to get through that section without getting hit.
It involves the same attack that I've shown in previous stages, and it's very effective on kickboxers as well.
First of all, I run up and knock down the kickboxer with a special (then special again to keep the Galsia away).
Then, I spam Max's blitz. The first one is blitz-2 for timing. After that, I spam blitz-3 to repeatedly slam him down.
Kickboxers get up more slowly than other enemies, so spamming blitz-2 would be too fast.
However, blitz-3 has just enough delay that I can simply spam it successfully every time.
I could time blitz-2 instead, but I want to minimize error whenever possible in an already difficult run.
In fact, it's because of his cheap and easy-to-use blitzes that I use Max for this run.
And with that, I've gotten through both kickboxers without damage, aside from that double special earlier.
And no worries about health: there's a full-health item inside one of the boxes.
I just want to get rid of these enemies first, just in case they hit me.
There is a miniboss up ahead: Wayne, a recolor of the stage 1 boss with less health.
Get rid of all these enemies first before taking him on.
I do the same thing I did in stage 1: knock him down, then slide and Atomic Drop repeatedly.
An alternative is to let him punch Max, then grab him and Bear Punch into Thunder Tackle.
It can be hard to set him up for Atomic Drops, so the second method is a good backup plan.
There is a katana inside one of the boxes here, which I'll be using a lot throughout this section.
But it's faster to kill these enemies with Max's combos, so I kill them before getting the katana.
The katana is used in my strategy against the three Jets coming up.
The plan is to get all three Jets offscreen to the left, so that they won't attack me.
And the range of the katana allows me to hit them without retaliation.
I inch forward to spawn the three Jets (and a couple of other enemies), then get all the Jets to the left side.
...or at least that's what I'm supposed to do. I unfortunately have a lot of trouble trying to do so here.
Interestingly, I grab one of the Jets twice by accident. Never had that happen here before.
Still, I usually don't have this much trouble getting the three Jets to the left.
Anyway, so the three Jets are all offscreen now, and I position myself in this spot for my strategy.
As soon as one of them tries to come near, I swing my katana. Simple as that.
I've easily done this part without damage in previous runs. Oh well, I guess no run is perfect.
Four more enemies spawn here, which is why I had to keep the Jets to the left.
After this are a few biker enemies.
I want to be careful and make sure that I spawn one biker at a time.
They're fast and can run up and knock me to the ground in one hit, which would make me drop my katana.
Even though there's a sword coming up soon, I want to keep my katana for now, just in case.
I knock down the ninja with a special, then spam blitz-2 very quickly.
Ninjas, unlike kickboxers, get up very quickly. If there's even a tiny delay in blitz-2 spam, I'll miss.
After a couple more bikers, there's another ninja. This one has a sword.
He backs off due to the grenades, but in my runs, he almost always gets hit once.
Yep, just like that, walks straight into it. And there's his sword if I need it.
Rarely, he'll jump into a grenade and get hit a second time.
I have to kill this ninja here without advancing, because there's another ninja waiting to the right.
I lose the katana, but at least I can still use the ninja's sword. And it's faster to kill them without a weapon, anyway.
There are two more bikers to the right, and I don't want them swarming me with this ninja, so kill this guy first.
I really want to keep the sword for the rest of the stage, so I kill the last two bikers before picking it up.
I love this song (Slow Moon), both the original SoR2 version and this remixed one. So good.
Unfortunately, the song ends... replaced by another of my favorites: Never Return Alive.
Coming up are a pair of fat guys, like Heart at the beginning of the stage.
My plan is to attack the two fat guys in such a way that they'll keep running into my sword.
Luckily, the sword has a longer range than their breaths of fire.
Once the two Donovans are gone, I'm free to just stand there and let them come to me.
It is said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result...
Anyway, I think this is hilarious and is the second of three reasons why I wanted to use a sword here.
Just wait till you see the boss fight... and I use the word "fight" loosely.
After this, two Galsias run in from the left. Easily dispatched with the sword.
Three more Galsias will come from behind. I let them jab me and then Thunder Tackle them.
It's important that no enemies interfere with the boss fight.
And then I grab the food now. If things go well, then I won't need it (and won't have time to get it).
▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ STAGE 5 BOSS ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄
The plan is to get the boss R. Bear to the lower-right corner. Unfortunately, this can be somewhat difficult.
With a combination of sword spamming and specials, I try to coax him into the corner.
Luckily, it went very smoothly this run. After he goes offscreen, stand around this spot.
Like with the Jets earlier, as soon as he tries to come back, hit him with the sword.
This works because whenever he's a specific distance directly in front of you, he'll try to lunge at you.
And there's only a narrow place in the lower-right corner where he can try to come back on the screen.
So without anywhere else to go, he will always try to punch you from that distance.
There's a tiny delay as he starts to throw his fist at you, making it easy to hit him with the sword.
And Max's range with the sword is just far enough that it can hit the boss at that distance.
Other characters with a far-reaching sword attack such as Adam or Zan can also do this.
████████████████████ STAGE 6 START ████████████████████
Stage 6 starts out with three ninjas, with a fourth one after you kill a few enemies.
This is one of the main reasons why I need Max's slide: I can dodge and attack without leaving myself too vulnerable.
The idea is to evade and keep enemies from swarming me while I wait for my chance to attack a ninja.
I have to kill at least one ninja ASAP; three is just too many to leave alone on the screen.
After I knock one down, one strategy is to spam blitz-2. You may remember how I did this in stage 5.
Because the ninja gets up very quickly, I have to spam blitz-2 very quickly, or else the ninja escapes.
It's good, but there's a better strategy if I have the room (i.e. if I don't have to worry about advancing the screen).
That other strategy is to repeatedly slide and throw (slam) the ninja backwards.
As long as I time and space myself properly, it's a very safe and reliable method of killing these ninjas.
The only difficult part is grabbing the ninja in the first place.
But once I'm able to knock one down, it's an almost guaranteed kill unless I mess up.
One time, I managed to get through the ninjas without any enemies hitting me at all (i.e. still had full health).
Unfortunately, I ended up dying in that run... grumble, grumble...
After this, a Galsia will run up to me. I want to knock him away immediately (easiest with a hammer punch).
This is because another enemy will rush from behind. I have to kill this guy right away.
Otherwise, he moves and attacks quickly with a lot of range. And he blocks. Very annoying enemy to kill here.
I slowly advance, spawning only one enemy at a time if possible.
I want to save my health for the kickboxers, of whom there are four, at the end of this beach.
So far, I've done pretty well in this stage; I still have almost all of my health.
In many of my runs, I've lost half or more of my health to those ninjas.
There isn't really a single guaranteed strategy for this part; I just try to improvise.
First, I want to knock one down with slides. Slides are best because I can typically spam them without retaliation.
If one falls near the edge of the screen, I spam blitz-3 just like I did in stage 5.
There is a possibility that a kickboxer will run up and combo me even if I spam blitz-3.
But it's a risk I'm willing to take here, especially since I have enough health that I can safely take some damage.
If one's on the ground, and there's no one else around (or I'm feeling daring), then I can go for an Atomic Drop.
But blitz-3 is my most reliable tactic here: good damage and generally able to keep the others away.
Even so, Max's slide is crucial in being able to approach the tougher enemies like kickboxers or ninjas.
This beach would be exceedingly difficult without sliding, and stages 7 and 8 are even harder than this.
The jungle starts with a full-health item, which of course is very much appreciated after all of that.
There is a karate guy who drops down near it. I tend to take care of him first.
There are a few more of him as well as several Signals, very easy compared to ninjas and kickboxers.
There isn't much to say at this point, as I'm just killing Signals and karate guys.
I've already gotten through the more difficult half of the stage, so the rest of it is relatively smooth sailing.
Among these sandbags is an ***, which I'll be using on a specific enemy up ahead.
This may look bad, but I intentionally get dropkicked here in order to drop the ***.
Now I can quickly kill this guy without having to worry about accidentally firing the ***.
There are also two bikers that will run at me from the right. Easy enough.
Finally, I saved the *** for this fat guy, with just enough bullets to take him to near-death.
So I shoot him in the face (with lots of blood if the Blood option is turned on)...
...and then throw the gun at him.
I immediately knock away this other fat guy, so that I can kill the biker running up from behind.
This next part has a bunch of motorcycles trying to run over me. It's basically memorization here.
For this last part before the boss, there will be two whip girls, along with several bikers who die in one hit.
One of the bikers has a pipe, which I want to keep because it will make the boss fight much faster.
But I don't want to use it against these guys, so I defend the pipe by sliding back and forth over it.
I don't want a biker to pick up the pipe, and I also have to keep the girls from hitting me.
Still, it's pretty easy, especially with the apple here and more food at the boss.
With the bikers gone, I can stop protecting the pipe and focus on the girls.
Overall, the jungle's pretty tame compared to the beach before it.
Up next, the boss Souther is a recolor of the stage 3 boss. He also comes with three Jets as backup.
However, Souther is the only one who needs to be defeated in order to clear the stage.
▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ STAGE 6 BOSS ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄
The plan here is to use Max's dash attack with the pipe, similar to what I did in stage 2.
After a preemptive strike, wait until Souther is in range, and then knock him down with a normal pipe attack.
As he gets up, slam the pipe into his head, taking off a good chunk of health.
Then return to the left edge because there's a Jet offscreen to the left.
So I run back and attack towards the left so that he'll back off, staying offscreen while I work on Souther.
I also don't want to advance the screen to the right because there are two more Jets waiting to spawn.
This is why the pipe is so helpful: it gives me the range to hit Souther while also dealing good damage.
The backup strategy without the pipe is to stay at the left edge and wait for Souther to attack.
Then use Max's standing jump attack (damage increases if Max's fists are aimed downward).
Souther will attack three times before jumping away. Then just wait for him to attack again.
It's a good strategy, one I've used before, but the pipe is definitely the faster way to go.
████████████████████ STAGE 7 START ████████████████████
Well, here we go into the factory of death...
Stages 7 and 8 are by far the most difficult stages on this route, due to their elevator sections.
And the Mania difficulty cranks it up to eleven. But we'll get into that later.
I'm a little surprised that I didn't get anti-aired after my elbow drop missed. Too close, I guess?
I want to kill this Galsia first before two fat guys drop down from the ceiling.
Right away, I knock down these two guys as they try to rush toward me.
Since they're vulnerable on wakeup, I'm free to combo them to death.
And there's an apple in one of the containers up there, so I don't have to worry about a little damage.
I like this music (Back to the Industry). Pretty intense for the penultimate stage.
There are two grenade-tossing bikers in the background: one here and another shortly after.
Now I have to wait all the grenades while the enemies stay on the other side.
But the last one finishes off the biker and drops the Galsia right next to me. How convenient!
I now have 9 lives. You may recall that I started the game with 0 and did not pick up any 1ups.
One more biker enemy after this. Take care of him first before triggering the guy in the background.
And here's the second guy who throws grenades. There are more in the elevator later on.
Meh, too lazy to run back. Just let the conveyor belt carry Max while waiting for the six grenades to explode.
Actually, it is possible to have more than 9 lives, though the counter at the top will display only up to 9.
Counting the four 1ups I've skipped, I could have 13 lives now, not to mention a fifth 1up later in this stage.
And the score will keep racking up extra lives for me, even though I can't see them.
One more enemy here. I want to take care of him before triggering the biker holding the pipe.
I don't want this guy pummeling me with a pipe while I'm distracted by other enemies.
As much as I like Max wielding a pipe, it's better if I don't have it for the next few enemies, so I leave it there.
Alright, the dreaded gauntlet of whip ladies and ninjas. I absolutely must aggro ONLY ONE at a time.
Max does so much damage that he can kill in one combo, but only if there isn't another enemy to interrupt him.
This ninja almost always jumps once and then runs straight at me. Easy kill.
There's a 1up inside the nearby container by the way. It's the last 1up on this route.
This ninja is also supposed to jump and run at me, but he throws a shuriken instead. Oh well, no matter.
The next ninja is tricky as he starts with a kunai. There's also a whip girl whose spawn point is slightly after the ninja's.
So I have to inch forward very carefully to trigger only the ninja and not her.
When I do, I run back so that he'll spin toward me, which I counter with a slide.
I mistime my follow-up attack, but fortunately I was able to grab him for a couple of Atomic Drops.
If he got away, then it's possible he could've thrown me to the right, spawning the remaining two whip girls.
Not only that, but I would have missed the food. I purposely saved it until after this girl, just in case I take damage.
The upcoming elevator is notoriously difficult, so I need to conserve as much health as I can.
At least I'm able to kill these guys very quickly, which is a huge help.
In the original SoR2, the scene ends here and I go to the elevator, but in SORR, there's an added section here.
These robots are actually from SOR3. Fairly minor nuisances, but I still need to save my health if possible.
As they're defeated, different robots will fall from the ceiling. These explode when attacked, so be careful.
It's better to grab and then either throw or slam them, or use your stationary special for invincibility.
Fun fact: These explosive robots are actually from the Game Gear version of SoR2.
▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ STAGE 7 ELEVATOR ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄
Okay, the elevator is split into five waves of enemies, and then the boss fight.
The first wave is just Galsias, Donovans, and Signals. Nothing special.
Because of that, I want to lose as little health here as possible.
That's why I'm sliding so much here to knock them down, making it easier to hit them when they get up.
I'm going to need as much health as possible for the other waves, which are significantly harder.
I also want to use that full-health item as late as possible, saving it for when I really need it.
I've never had any enemy attempt to eat it. Maybe the AI is designed not to eat food on elevators?
I position myself very carefully here. I want to exploit a quirk in the enemy AI.
The second wave has swarms of Galsias and Donovans, as well as the ever-annoying Jets.
But first, I position myself exactly at this spot because the enemies get "stuck" to the left.
It may be kind of hard to see, but there are enemies in the top-left corner not doing much of anything.
This lets me focus my attacks to the right. If someone does hit me from behind, I can easily special.
I'm just glad that none of them go for the food.
Even if there are no enemies near me here, I still have to keep attacking.
That's because there are Jets offscreen to the left, and if I stop attacking, they'll sneak up and grab me.
After I kill the rest of these guys, my strategy for the Jets is this:
I bait them to fall to the ground in an attempt to ram me, where I quickly run up and Thunder Tackle them.
Then I jump kick two times. This isn't so much for damage; it's more to stall them while waiting for my special meter.
I can also jump kick them to death, which some other characters have to do, rather than using Thunder Tackle.
I do it this way because it's more fun. I'm not even sure if this is any faster than jump kicks for Max.
Sometimes, a Jet will attack from overhead instead of the ground, ending up onscreen to the right.
At this point, I again bait that Jet to fly at me, where I jump over and kick him back to the left.
Then, it's back to business as usual.
The good thing is, I barely lost any health so far. But if you thought Jets were bad, it gets worse.
The third wave has a swarm of karate guys, which wouldn't be so bad except there's also two ninjas!
I stand here so that I can slide and get a free grab on the first enemy, after which I lunge to the right.
It's significantly easier to repeatedly blitz-2 a ninja against the wall than at the edge of a screen.
I just want to get at least one ninja out of the way ASAP.
Also, you absolutely do not want a ninja to have a sword, because that thing hurts!
I probably should have specialed out of that mob, probably would have lost less health.
At least I finally kill the last ninja and don't have to worry about them for the rest of the game.
The rest of these guys are significantly easier without the ninjas getting in the way.
...at least when I don't do dumb mistakes like that.
Now, it may look like I should get the food now, but I tough it out here.
This is because I get a free health boost (about half a bar) after this.
The fourth wave is even worse: swarms of bikers as well as four kickboxers!
I stand in this spot so that I can immediately attack the first enemy, who is a kickboxer.
My strategy against these kickboxers is to first slide twice in order to get enemies away from me.
And then I grab the kickboxer, immediately slam him down for moderate damage, and repeat.
After that first kickboxer, I just kill whoever I can, depending on who I can knock down.
I slide around, knocking down any enemies I can and then attacking them accordingly.
It may look like I have a lot of time, but I really have to kill as quickly as possible.
That's all the time I'm gonna get until the stage is cleared, and I still have another wave plus the boss fight.
Unfortunately, I mess up with this kickboxer, so I have to improvise.
It's alright at first, but then I make the mistake of waiting, allowing the biker to rush at me, forcing me to special.
Thankfully, I'm able to eliminate the kickboxer. That's three of them down so far.
Out of sheer luck, the last kickboxer runs right into my slide, knocking him into the wall.
There are a total of three bikers in the background who lob grenades into the stage.
This actually helps me as enemies are usually too busy avoiding grenades to attack me. Usually.
After the last kickboxer dies, the rest of this wave is cake. Bikers are more annoying than actually dangerous.
Just have to wait for the last of the grenades to explode.
Even better is when enemies run right into the grenades.
I think the third and fourth waves are the hardest; police specials help the most for those waves.
The fifth wave has two Galsias, a Donovan, a Jack-type enemy (the one who uses knives), and two fat guys.
The fat guys are the dangerous ones: they do a lot of damage, and it's easy for them to hit you while others swarm you.
I try to kill the lesser enemies quickly so that I don't have to deal with so many guys at once.
After that, I generally try to focus on killing one of the fat guys first. I really don't want two of them around.
Then, I go for the other fat guy since they're easier to hit when they get up.
Soya here has invincibility frames on wakeup, which wasn't the case in the original SoR2.
Again, it may look like I should get the food, but I get another health boost (over half a bar) after this.
As long as I don't get hit (like this...), I should be just fine.
I'm just glad to finally be done with these waves of enemies!
▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ STAGE 7 BOSS ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄
Now it's time for some fun: I love this hectic boss fight against four robots, as hard as it is.
I usually get here with around 40 on the clock, so I have a bit of extra time in this run. I still can't afford to dawdle, though.
My strategy is first to knock one down, then slide into and slam it across the screen repeatedly.
It's kind of hard to describe in words, but it should make sense when I show it here.
...if I stop doing it wrong. Unfortunately, I do have trouble with this fight sometimes.
It's just so erratic with all four of them jumping around everywhere.
I have actually died here before in a few runs, once even due to running out of time. Very frustrating.
Time is a big issue because I have to cut through at least 20 life bars combined.
Okay, here we go, this is how it's done. I wasted a lot of time, though.
I do a lot of damage quickly, and since it gets up fast, I slide right after landing, dodging attacks from the others.
And because I focus on one of them at a time, the fight becomes easier as the robots are destroyed.
When I slam one of them, it also hits any nearby ones for a little extra damage. Pretty nice.
I do this Atomic Drop a little too early, though. I thought its health was low enough, but apparently not.
But it conveniently decides to self-destruct, which it sometimes does if its health is extremely low.
And in case you're wondering, I am keeping an eye on my health throughout the fight.
I typically get the food during the 3rd, 4th, or 5th wave. This is the first time I didn't need it at all.
I decide to fetch the food anyway, then finally finish this ferociously formidable (but admittedly fun) elevator.
████████████████████ STAGE 8 START ████████████████████
I want to kill the enemy behind me right away, easiest with a Thunder Tackle.
Then the guy with a knife is trivial to kill since he runs in a straight line.
With both of them gone, the robot dies to a standing combo.
I want that pipe, but I completely whiff my attack. Should've just used the knife in the first place.
Another Donovan approaches from the left. I want to kill him first so that the robot is alone.
This is because another robot will spawn from the right, and I want to fight those two alone.
I want to kill both of them at the same time. It's easier with the pipe since it knocks down instantly.
After one of them's gone, a miniboss (Bear Jr.) will join in, and he's much easier alone than with a robot.
Bear Jr. is a recolor of the stage 5 boss, though with less health.
Surprisingly, I actually manage to hit Bear Jr. a couple of times with the pipe.
But I have a better plan. Slide to get him to back off. He should then jump and try to sit on Max.
Run back and then Thunder Tackle him when he lands. Keep using slides to bait him to jump.
I alternate between Thunder Tackle and a slide to hit him because my special meter doesn't recharge fast enough.
And in this stage, I really want to keep an eye on my health; I'm probably going to need it.
After this is the elevator: less enemies than stage 7's, but also less room to move and less health to recover.
I'm going to be spamming blitz-2 like crazy. I think it's the best way to get through here without dying.
▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ STAGE 8 ELEVATOR ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄
With all of my blitz-2 spam, I apologize if this gets a little boring to watch.
Yep, running into the wall, I got a free Atomic Drop on Galsia. Go figure, considering he was looking the wrong way...
Anyway, this first wave consists of Galsias, Donovans, karate guys, and Vulture (another recolor of the stage 1 boss).
As you might have guessed, this is the easiest wave. It gets much, much more difficult.
I keep spamming blitz-2 to get rid of the lesser enemies, so that Vulture is alone.
At this point, I switch strategies. I still use blitz-2, but I have Vulture throw me afterwards.
After landing, I use blitz-2 again. There's no room in the elevator for him to dodge.
You may wonder why I don't use Atomic Drops like in stages 1 and 5. Well, I don't want to risk messing up and taking damage.
I find this is much safer, albeit much slower. I'm rather paranoid about losing health because there's so little recovery.
The second wave has more Galsias and Donovans, along with two whip girls and Nail (recolor of the stage 2 boss).
The two girls will drop in after I kill a couple of enemies, but Nail will spawn a few seconds after the elevator stops.
I get rid of these enemies first so that the first girl will appear, and I can start whittling down her health.
Again, I spam blitz-2. Safety is top priority, though I may add a Thunder Tackle or two to speed things up.
Health isn't too big an issue as long as I don't get beat up too badly. I recover about half a bar right after this wave.
Once I get Nail alone, there are two potential strategies, depending on what he decides to do.
If I can bait him into using his anti-air attack, then I back away and use blitz-2 on him. Bait and repeat as necessary.
However, if he jumps over me, then I can actually run to his landing spot and get a free Atomic Drop.
Then I bait him to jump backwards, where I'm waiting with another Atomic Drop. Not too shabby.
The third wave has a few Galsias and Donovans, two kickboxers, and Z. Kusano (recolor of the stage 4 boss).
If I want a good chance at not dying, I must kill the first kickboxer ASAP, before Z. Kusano spawns.
A Thunder Tackle and two Atomic Drops just barely get the job done. And I narrowly avoid Z. Kusano's body slam.
Then, it's back to blitz-2 spam as usual. I don't think there's any other way for me to get through here safely.
Luckily, I actually manage to kill all the lesser enemies just as the second kickboxer shows up.
This right here is the best possible situation that I could have gotten. I was worried I'd have a ton of trouble.
What makes this part so hard is that the kickboxers block so much, they can even counter my blitz-2 spamming.
But he can't block if I grab him, making it an easy kill. And Z. Kusano is being nice and staying on the other side.
With Z. Kusano alone, I switch strategies again. I use a combination of blitz-2 and Knuckle Bomb to kill him.
Without a doubt, this was the best stage 8 elevator I have ever gotten. I barely lost any health at all.
But I've died against Mr. X before, so I'm not too excited yet. At least I get some minor health recovery at the top.
Mr. X summons a few more minions to try to sap my health before he sends Shiva after me.
I must conserve as much health as I can, so I take out these guys slowly.
The guy smoking in the chair is Mr. X. The guy in black standing next to him is Shiva, who I have to fight first.
I need as much health against Mr. X as possible, because a single mistake can take out a large chunk of health.
But I have a strategy for Shiva, and if I don't make any mistakes, I shouldn't get hit by him at all.
▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ STAGE 8 BOSS ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄
My strategy for Shiva involves looping his AI pattern. When the battle starts, use blitz-2.
I run away, and he backs off. Then he rushes in, and I use blitz-2 again. Repeat until he's dead.
It's all about timing. Too early, and I'll only knock him away without slamming him down.
And if I'm too late, then I'll go straight through him because Shiva's Final Crash has invincibility frames.
It's not overly difficult to loop him again, but obviously it's better to not mess up in the first place.
And as you might have noticed, when I run away, I go up or down a little bit. This is important.
If I run straight back, then Shiva will run right up to me and combo me instead of backing off.
If possible, do NOT kill Shiva with a special, or you'll lose a chunk of health, as if your special meter were empty.
▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ FINAL BOSS ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄
As for Mr. X, I get an early combo on him to do about one-and-a-half bars of damage.
Then I go into my strategy: slide away to get him to back off. Then slide in and Thunder Tackle him for damage.
It's similar to my stage 4 boss strategy, except here are enemies to stun me while Mr. X smacks me with his gun.
And occasionally, he'll just run right up to me and shoot at me. He's extremely fast, too.
I admit I'm rather cowardly here, but this is the most reliable strategy I've found for dealing with Mr. X.
The most important thing to watch out for is his gun; that thing will get you killed faster than you'd think.
Sliding is also important to keep enemies from attacking me while I wait for an opportunity to attack Mr. X.
It was pretty dumb of me to chase after Mr. X, but I got lucky and grabbed him.
The last thing I want to do is get cocky here. Max's barrel rolls won't deflect Mr. X's bullets, sadly.
This can get pretty nerve-wracking when Mr. X can cover the screen with lead very quickly.
When Mr. X has about one life bar left, he becomes much more aggressive; he won't stand still anymore.
And he is also more likely to run up and combo you, which hurts a lot, so definitely special out of it.
My strategy changes to simply attempting to slide into him and Thunder Tackle to kill him before he kills me.
Running low on health, I started to get worried. I really REALLY didn't want to lose yet another good run...
I think I literally jumped up and screamed for joy when I finally (oh my, FINALLY) completed my no-death Mania run.
Thanks for watching! Enjoy the ending/credits!