Did some running yesterday.
I was proud of this Chameleon stage right here. This is easily my personal best so far. I am going by the new "Chameleon 3rd route", made possible by the Phantom Grab trick that allows for getting the heart tank without beating Launch Octopus' stage first.
This is actually one of the stages I've had the most practice in since it's one of my favorite stages. Very few luck-based elements, it's mostly skill from start to finish. The biggest luck-based element is whether or not the grasshopper drops a pickup the first time when doing the setup for the Waterless Heart Grab at the beginning. I got lucky here.
I have to take damage at some point before going for the Waterless, and the best way to take damage is sandwiching myself between the tree chopper and his tree because the tree negates the knockback effect, and the invincibility frames allow me to continue immediately.
Other than Waterless, the toughest part of the stage is the miniboss guarding the body armor upgrade.
His weakness is the Boomerang Cutter, but it's also the weapon I need to beat Chameleon himself, so I can't waste all of them to beat the miniboss. I've settled in shooting 13 dash lemons at him and then switching to the boomerangs to finish him off.
After the miniboss it's basically an obstacle course that I can memorize in my sleep. Still fun, though. Most of the enemies go down with one dash lemon, so it's easy to blaze your way through.
The other big luck-based factor here is Chameleon's boss fight, and that's where I get unlucky; I get the bad Chameleon pattern, which is him starting the fight by jumping on top of me to shoot his leaves, and that messes up my timing in getting him into the stun loop.
There are hiccups here and there all over the stage, though. I jump too early off of platforms, don't chain all of my dash jumps correctly, etc. Especially me taking down the first ride armor guy in the swamp area is just ugly.
But all in all, pretty happy with this one.
This is the Chameleon 3rd route, which is the most efficient known way of beating the game and getting all the upgrades:
- Chill Penguin
- Boomer Kuwanger
- Sting Chameleon
- Storm Eagle
- Flame Mammoth
- Spark Mandrill
- Armored Armadillo
- Launch Octopus
- Chill Penguin Re-Visit for the Heart Tank
It's also the hardest route, only for hardcores. :)
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