Sonic Generations - Time Eater (Final Boss) Guide

Video of Time Eater: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgoE8TjqmsU

This Blog will explain how to take on Time Eater. I'll explain all his moves, how to hit him, and some of the lesser known tricks to this fight.

How to Damage Time Eater

First of all, to take out Time Eater, you have to hit is Orb 3 times. To do this, you have to Boost into the core. Easier said than done. You only have to hold down Boost, you don't have to mash it like some people think. You have to be somewhat centered on Time Eater to reach him. You have to be in Modern Sonic dimension to hit Time Eater (to my knowledge).

When you get close to Time Eater, he'll do a crush move. Avoid it by going up to the height of the head, and then after the move quickly descend while still Boosting and ram into the core. For some reason, it's possible to bypass the crush move sometimes. It's rare, but I did it twice in this fight. Don't rely on it.

Time Eater Attacks

This game does not really make it clear, but there is a heavy reliance on the ability to switch Sonics. What most people don't realize is that the only way Time Eater will generally be able to hit you is if you're in the same "dimension" as him, as I'll refer to it. There is both a Modern and Classic dimension. Time Eater will constantly go back and forth between them. If he does moves in the Classic dimension, then you can't get hit by them int he Modern dimension, and vice versa. Use this to dodge all the moves, or at least most. The downside is switching often makes it harder to get close enough to the Time Eater fast when he's int he Modern dimension to hit his orb.

Your friends will try to tell you what to do constantly. While sometimes they may be wrong with "switch now" and such, you should listen to them because they tell you when the Time Eater will attack, and what attack he'll do. It's extremely helpful when dodging the Laser.

*PHASE 1*

Homing Attack

Description: The Time Eater sends out multiple yellow homing bullets at once that track you.
How to Dodge: Move around slowly in a circle to avoid it easily. Just moving at all will dodge it, but make sure on Hard Mode that you don't trap yourself with the extra bullets. Switching Sonics should also avoid this.
Notes: If you switch Sonics to avoid the move, keep in mind you only need to switch if the Time Eater does the move in your same dimension, otherwise the move will be really easy to avoid anyway.
This is the Time Eater's most used attack. On Hard Mode, you'll see this a lot.

Warping Arm Attack

Description: The Time Eater sends an arm through a warp to hit you.
How to Dodge: This ones a little tricky to dodge. You'll want to fly as far away from the arms potential path as possible. It usually does a swiping motion, so if it's all the way at the top, it'll probably reach down. If you don't think you'll avoid it, switch Sonics and the move will not ever hit you.
Notes: As noted with Homing Attack, if you switch Sonics to avoid the move, make sure you switch into the dimension that the Warping Arm is not in, or you may switch right into it!

Crush

Description: The Time Eater uses a Crush move when you get too close to him.
How to Dodge: Simply hover above him near the head level to avoid this. Then immediately go back down while in Boost to hit the Orb.
Notes: He uses this always when you approach him close enough. Rare occasions it'll glitch and you'll just go into the Orb. This may be due to him not doing the Crush move if he's in the middle of one of his other moves, so if you're too close already you may just glitch into the Orb anyway. (At least I think it's a glitch).

*PHASE 2*

Laser

Description: The Time Eater charges and releases a laser on you.
How to Dodge: A lot of people have trouble dodging this, but it's really easy if you use the same idea from the moves above. Switch Sonics to avoid it! It's that simple. I don't think it's possible to dodge if you stay in the same dimension as it.
Notes: Time Eater will only use this move in the last phase. This move comes out fast, so you'll have to listen to your friends warn you or watch him charge up. It also makes it hard to Boost at him when you have to switch to avoid the laser when he uses it in Modern Sonic's dimension.

Slow

Description: Time Eater slows time on all his surrounds except for himself.
How to Dodge: This move appears to do nothing but freak you out. The move ends after a certain amount of time. I've never been damaged by it. Even though Time Eater is unaffected by it, he just spams Homing Attacks that probably won't hit you before the move ends.
Notes: This move tends to be followed up with the Laser, so beware!

Explosion

Description: This is his desperation attack he uses on the very last part of Phase 2. He charges up a giant energy ball to send towards you.
How to Dodge: Simply hold L1 + R1 at the same time, as a friend will tell you to do.
Notes: Do not let go of L1 + R1 too soon, or you'll get hit. It's best if you just wait until the cutscene starts.

How To Survive

Since the Time Eater does not damage you when you get hit, you're probably wondering how you can die. As usual, being Super Sonic consumes your ring usage. When you hit 000 rings, you die. Many people have trouble gathering rings in this fight, but it's actually rather easy if you know the layout.

To stay alive, at the very beginning of the fight, use Boost immediately on the rings. If you don't know, Boosting past rings makes them follow you until you get them. So every time you find a row of rings, Boost past them and you'll pick up more than if you didn't.

Whenever you hit the Time Eater's Orb, he'll drop a ton of rings, so Boost right after again to pick up as many as you can. However, before warping into the next part, let go of Boost so you can align yourself with the incoming rings and THEN Boost through them as straight as possible to get as many rings as possible.

In Classic Sonic's dimension, it's really easy to pick up rings as they're really easy to pick up in a 2D view. So switch sometimes to that dimension to get more rings.

Using these tips will help you stay alive in this fight long enough, because sometimes, especially on Hard Mode, you may have trouble reaching Time Eater.

Summary & Tips

• Always be in Boost except when you want to align yourself to pick up rings.
• If you use X, you can send the Sonic you're not using to destroy nearby Debris. It's almost useless, but worth noting. Also be aware that you cannot switch Sonics while using this move.
• Remember that Boosting past rings makes them follow you.
• Try to stay centered on Time Eater in Modern Sonic dimension to get to him faster.
• The laser move can only be avoided by switching Sonics.

Catch Touch This Trophy

To get this trophy, you have to beat Time Eater without getting hit. This is very vague and it's hard to know when the Time Eater actually hits you or if it's just debris, as debris does NOT count as a hit.

Really to get this trophy just make use of Sonic switching to avoid all hits. You CAN get this trophy on Hard Mode instead of Normal Mode, but I only did it for video purposes, don't do it if you're sane.

Stream Tonight?

I'm most likely going to stream tonight for the first time in a long time. If it goes well, I'll schedule more streaming dates. I plan to stream playing Brawl wifi matches with random players who join the stream.

It'll be around 9:00pm eastern, I'll upload a video before then for when it'll start.

Livestream link: http:///www.twitch.tv/Bizkit047

Apex 2012

I'm going to be at Apex 2012 Saturday & Sunday. So I won't have another video up until either Monday or Tuesday depending on how much sleep I'll need after I likely near sleepless weekend I'll be having.

Follow the stream here: http://www.apexsmash.com/stream/

Today is Melee, Saturday is Brawl, Sunday is top 8 of Brawl & Melee. Don't get too excited, I doubt you'll see me on stream at any point, but there will still be tons of top players from all over the world. We got Nietono, Kakera, Otori, Rain, Brood, Ocean, and more from Japan. We have Mr. R and Leon from Europe, of course Ally from Canada, and vVv Zero from Chile.

You can also follow my Twitter: www.twitter.com/Bizkit047

I'll be doing updates mostly for New England players only, although there's so many of us going I might forget.

Streaming?

I've thought about streaming again recently. Not like how I used to where it was nearly every day, but maybe schedule one every once in a while, maybe every other week. However, I need to get it set up. Last time I tried I had some problems with the audio not being good enough for my liking and such, so we'll see what I can do.

New Video Series Tomorrow & FFXIII-2???

Hey guys, just letting you know what's up. Now that my FFIX series is over, I'm starting another series tomorrow. It's not FF, though. Or Kingdom Hearts. Or Brawl. WHAT IS IT!? You'll see. I only very recently planned to upload it, but I think you guys will like it. It isn't the same series I intended to start after FFIX as I stated in my 1,500th video special, but I put that on hold for this instead.

As for FFXIII-2, it came out in Japan on the 15th. I don't intend to get a Japanese copy. I don't even know if I'll get it when it comes out in the states. I might wait, because I'm really skeptical on how good it will be. SquareEnix does not have a good track record with making sequels to FF games (FFX-2...). And the OST that I've heard so far for the game has been either downright insulting or just bland, save maybe a couple songs. In other words, I'm not too hyped about it. FFXIII Versus, on the other hand....when that comes out I'm all over that.

Youtube's New Update

So Youtube updated its site, once again, last week. Just when you thought YT couldn't be designed any more stupid, they go out of their way to prove you wrong. They re-designed virtually everything, even though the Home Page and Channels Pages stick out most.

Let's start with the Home Page. Oh boy, where to begin..for starters, WHAT THE FUCK DID THEY DO TO THE HOME PAGE!? Like seriously, before the update the Home Page was set up so that every person you're subbed to shows up on the Home Page when they upload a new video. You're probably thinking "Well hey, they do that now too!" Well the difference is...they displayed them horizontally. What you see now is a vertical list...well forget calling it a list, might as well call it a cluster fuck of seemingly random videos.

I can't help but feel like YT is trying to be like Facebook with the status updates. Just because it works for Facebook does NOT mean it works for fucking Youtube. The absolute WORST part about this update is the inability to close out of the videos on the Home Page after viewing them. Yes, thanks for taking away that feature YT. Now we're stuck with 9000 fucking videos on the front page and have to watch the videos immediately when they come out or they get buried in the giant stack of nonsense you call a video list.

As for the Channel pages? Good god, it's like they purposely wanted to suck the creativity out of them. They're replacing them with bland grey/white boxing. So if you spent hours working on a channel design to make your channel look unique and exciting...then you're out of luck. You can still keep the background image, but it will likely look out of place and stupid with the bland boxing. They haven't force updated the channels, but they will soon.

That's about it. It's sad that no one at YT appears to be smart enough to design a reasonable Home Page. I wonder if they ever see the feedback they get on their YT re-design videos. It's nearly all negative comments and thumbs downed videos.

1,500th Video & Donations!

View my 1,500th Video Special here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TOaiVUtCfo

As for donations, like I said in the video, you're welcome to donate to me now to support my channel. Click the button below to donate to me on Paypal, or just send it to my Paypal directly at Bizkit047@yahoo.com.

If button below doens't work, go to the direct link: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=YEPTKRG7CWSX8

1500th Video Special

My 1,500th Video Special...Is NOT going to be Brawl related! I know, shocking. What is it going to be then? You'll have to wait to see. This is assuming it comes out the way I want it to. I'm trying to make this pretty epic. It's not a super awesome long bunch of stuff like I usually do, but it should definitely be entertaining for the people who will care about it.

I plan to release it as my Monday video, unless I fall behind on schedule, in which case I may push it back a couple days. Just letting you know it's coming.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Tourney in Wallingford, CT

Hey guys, if any of you are in the New England region or in CT especially and play MW3, check out their tourney this Saturday (November 19th): http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=241674559227858

It's at the venue I normally hold my Brawl tourneys at, so it's legit!

Upcoming Videos?

If you've been following my channel, you'll have noticed that I'm nearing the end of SSE (Brawl). What's next, you ask? What, you didn't ask? Well I'm going to tell you anyway! Maybe not exactly what's coming up, but some stuff.

I DO have more tourney videos to upload. However, going from so many SSE videos all in a row into tourney videos would be a bit much. So instead, I'm likely going to start off my new video series first. Then after that gets started off, I'll do some tourney videos. By then, I'll have hit my 1,500th video.

After my 1,500th video, I'll have some more tourney matches to upload as well as finishing off the new video series that's coming next week. I have even bigger plans for a new game series to join in, one that I have not ever uploaded anything from before. What is it? It's super secret, no one knows as of right now. And I will keep it that way for a while. Stay tuned!

Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - A Rank FAQ

Note: This isn't new, it's a re-post of the text file from my old site that I no longer have.

Here are some tips on how to get A Ranks on levels, as well as tips for specific characters and levels. This may be added onto.

For more information, go to www.gamefaqs.com and look up FAQs for Sonic Adventure 2. There is an A-rank FAQ, but it does not offer tips/strategies, only requirements for scores and times. There are also FAQs for Lost Chao and 100 Ring levels (most of them).


Last Updated: 11/8/07

SCORE EXPLANATION

Scores are calculated by a few different factors. Each time you preform certain actions, your score is increased. The time you finish a level also affects your final score. Dying anytime in a level resets your score to 0. Needless to say, if you want an A-rank, don't die. There are very few exceptions (Lost Chao missions, for example).

Your score is raised whenever you kill an enemy, grab a ring, or preform certain tricks (such as grinding on rails or doing a trick off a ramp). Whenever you get the chance to do a trick, do it. Some levels depend on this for getting A-ranks.

Doing enemy combos and trick combos give you bonus points. These bonus points get added onto the points you already earned. For example, home attacking 2 enemies in a row with Sonic gives you 100 extra points on what you already earn for killing them. But if you only kill one at a time, you don't get that extra bonus.

A-RANK TIPS

1. Always kill the Golden Bot. These guys are worth 1000 points. They only appear once in every level, though. And they only appear when you are close to them. They also disappear if you take too long to kill it, and won't come back. Their positions are the same on each stage, except on some occasions on Hard Mode missions. So before you attempt A-ranks on a mission, find where the Golden Bot is so that's 1000 less points you have to worry about.

2. For Lost Chao missions, your rank depends on your time, rather than score. Use this to your advantage. It means you can die and still get an A-rank. Note that the time you have to get the Lost Chao in for the A-rank is different for each stage.

3. Go for combo attacks and tricks. These basically come into play with everyone except Knuckles/Rouge missions. For Sonic/Shadow, using the Homing Attack on multiple enemies in a row give you a nice big bonus ontop of the enemies normal score points. For Tails/Eggman, hold down the targeting button and get as many enemies locked on as possible before letting it fire. As for tricks, these mainly apply to Sonic/Shadow. Grinding on rails one after another can give you nice bonus points. The max amount of bonus points you can earn in one combo move is 2000 (called "Perfect"). These tend to only show up on Tails/Eggman missions though.

4. Be more concerned with your score instead of your time. Although you do get bonus points for completing a level fast, if you rush through levels too fast, you may miss ways of getting even more points. In some missions, you can get an A-rank even if you get 0 points for time bonus. A perfect example of this is Hard Mode missions for Tails/Eggman (Cosmic Wall and Eternal Engine as a perfect example). I personally got an A-rank on Crazy Gadget Hard Mode with a 0 time bonus, because I killed every enemy I could and preformed enough combos. So before you worry about speed, find out how large you can get your score without a time bonus. Who knows, you may even get an A-rank while doing that. If you've looked for every possible combo and score points you can earn without a time bonus and still fall short, then try to speed yourself up. Because sometimes you do have to rely on being somewhat fast (hey there Metal Harbor).

5. An alternate way to get A-ranks for any mission is to get all the rings on that mission. You will get a "Perfect" count for the rings and it'll give you the A-rank. While this may seem not too bad, keep in mind most levels have massive amounts of rings. You usually can't backtrack easily either, so if you miss ONE ring you may not even get the A-rank. I personally find it harder to do that than to actually do the mission normally for the A-rank. But if you're determined to get it that way, good luck on the levels with 500 rings. And good luck doing it on the 4th missions.

6. 100 Ring missions are like Lost Chao missions, based on time only. You have to get 100 Rings before a certain time to get that A-rank. So don't waste your time killing enemies unless they're blocking your path or a threat. Go right for rings fast as possible. These are usually fast and easy A-ranks, except the hunter stages (read more on that below). If you get hit during this, just restart.


CHARACTER TIPS

***Sonic/Shadow***

1. Home attack combo as much as possible. These gain you lots of extra points.

2. Grind every rail you can, they usually give you points, especially when you combo grind rails in a row.

***Tails/Eggman***

1. Hold down the targeting button and spin your laser target-er around to get as many enemies locked on as possible before releasing the button to shoot them all. These give you huge combos and these large bonus point combos are required for pretty much all their missions.

2. Don't get hit when trying to do a combo. If you get hit during the combo, you won't get the bonus points. This is mostly an issue for Cosmic Wall for Eggman. Those blasted blue enemies have massive range of attack. The fact that the GC version requires you to get 100,000 points as opposed to the Dreamcast version's 50,000 points makes it all the worse.

3. Try to milk groups of enemies for points if possible. As stated before, 2000 is the max bonus points you can get from a combo. If you target the required amount of enemies to get 2000, try to leave any extra enemies alive so you can gain even MORE points after you kill off the first wave. Eggman's Weapon Bed level is a perfect example of this with the stationary enemies you see at the beginning and throughout the level. If you target too many you'll get less points in the end than if you only go for 2000 bonus points at a time.

***Knuckles/Rouge***

Note: I refer to the 3 objects you have to get as "items". So just replace item with "shard/gem/key/whatever". Mostly they're shards of the Master Emerald though.

1. The amount of bonus points you get when you find an item depends on two factors. One is time. If you take too long to find it, your bonus points go down. The second depends on how many hints you use. You can use up to 3 hints per item you're hunting. Not using any hints and being fast for each item can give you 2000 bonus points an item. That's 6000 points right there if you get them all fairly fast. And assuming you got all 3 fast, you'll get a nice time bonus too, giving you almost a guaranteed A-rank. Even if you miss one 2000 bonus point, as long as it's a decent amount you can still get an A.

2. Golden Bots do exist on the hunter levels, so go for them. Assuming the Golden Bot isn't too far out of a levels basic path, 1000 points can save you if you happen to have a little trouble finding an item.

3. Don't be afraid to kill enemies in your way. Don't forget you still get points for killing regular enemies. While there really aren't that many enemies in these type of levels, you might as well kill most things in your way to get those points. You never know if you'll have needed them.

4. Hard Mode mission items are always in the same place. The hard part about the Hard Mode missions is finding the items the first time. Once you find them, just Restart the level and speed run your way to them. Don't use any hints and be somewhat fast and you'll easily get 2000 bonus points an item, for an easy A-rank. I personally find the Hard Mode A-ranks easier than the normal ones. Although, finding them initially is the hard part. But you can look up the Hunter FAQ on Gamefaqs if you're totally stumped on where they are.

5. It's hard to find items outside of Hard Mode missions without using hints. I find the best method is to glide around basic parts of the level until you start detecting one. If you haven't detected the first one for about 15 seconds, just restart. After you find the first item, it's a safe bet the second item isn't near you. Try gliding to another basic area.

6. Keep in mind it's still possible to get an A-rank while using a hint or two. So if you've gotten the first two items with 2000 bonus points each, don't ruin it by never finding where the last one is. Just grab a hint and find it quickly. The time bonus may save you if you're under 3-4 mins.

7. Alternately, you can memorize (writing down is easier) what all the hints point to. So going to 3 monitors per item and writing down where they all go to means you can do the A-rank attempt by using only one hint per item. It's a fairly safe method if you don't mind writing things down. Just remember to pause while you're looking up where the hint tells you to go so you don't waste your definite needed time bonus points for this.

8. For 100 ring missions, you are ranked on time. The time is very slim on these. It would be wise to search the entire level for all the rings you can find while recording it. Then watch it and write down the best order to get all the rings in. Also note that you CANNOT dig up rings on the 100 Ring Missions. Alternately, you can look up a FAQ if you don't mind doing it that way. I personally find the Knuckles/Rouge missions to be the hardest of the 100 Ring missions, only because the rings are rare.

LEVEL TIPS

**Metal Harbor**

Description: Metal Harbor can be one of the hardest Sonic missions to get an A-rank on, right up there with Final Rush, if not harder. This is because you MUST get as many points as possible AND be fast enough to get enough time bonus points. And most people don't know all the tricks to it.

Mission 1 & 4 score tips: There are a few overlooked chances to increase your score in this level. The biggest one is near the final part with the space rocket. Instead of going off the bouncer onto the rocket, if you jump off to the left of the rocket when you reach the top, enemies will appear. Homing on them gives you a pretty big combo of bonus points. The downside is that you must do this flawlessly. When you kill the last enemy and fall back on the platform, you take the speed booster up the ramp and you'll see rings that you can Light Dash or whatever it's called up to the Bouncers. Trust me when I say you have to be perfect. You will be down to the last second. But it is basically the only way to pull off an A-rank. You need these points. Practice rushing up to the top without getting caught on any walls.

The other overlooked chance to score some points is right after the Light Dash that brings you onto the platform where the air crafts try to bomb you. As soon as you land on that platform, touch the booster but jump over the second booster. To the left of the second set of boosters there's some enemies that will appear in a line. Home attack them up to the Extra Life. This will give you some much needed bonus points. You may be able to still get an A-rank without doing this assuming you do the trick in the combo above, but I wouldn't personally risk it. This ones much easier to pull off anyway.

**Death Chamber**

Description: This can be quite a frustrating level to get all A-ranks on.

Mission 1 & 4 score tips: Although I can't say this with 100% confidence, it still has always worked for me. In the attempts I've made for A-rank, it always appears as if a key is in each color area. In other words, there should never be a key in the same color area, such as two keys in the red area, or green area. This being said, it makes it much easier to get A-rank by gliding through the red area right away (which is where you start off). If you're lucky you'll find a key right away. If not, glide to the blue or green area. If you went through one of those areas and still haven't detected a key, restart and try until you find your first key in the first two areas you go through (red + either blue or green).

After the first key is found, note where you found it. If you found it in the blue area, go to red or green next. The key should be in either of the other two areas. It's a gamble, but it's a small level, so if it's not in one area you should be able to get to another area rather quick. Once you get the second one, simply search the last color area you haven't yet for that last key. I don't remember, but there's a small chance a key might show up in that center area. But even if it is you should still be okay, as you will most likely go through there anyway as you go through each area, since the center room connects them all. And as you already should know, you have to know this level really well. Getting lost is a good way to not get an A-rank.

**Meteor Herd**

Description: The biggest Knuckles level, and perhaps the most annoying Knuckles level.

Mission 1 & 4 score tips: Just like with Death Chamber, there is usually a pattern. I'd suggest immediately going towards the tower structure (where you fought Rouge) and taking the Rocket there up. If you're lucky you'll detect a shard right away. If not, keep taking rockets up until you get to the top. My theory is that only one shard will be at the top (if any). If you get to the top and haven't detected a shard, try Drill Clawing down until you detect one. If you hit the ground without detecting one, restart and repeat. After you find that first shard, chances are the second and third ones won't be near it. So finishing out the top of the level, aka hardest to get to area, makes it much easier to find the others. Again, you might want to do some practice runs to find some common patterns of where the shards may show up.

**Cosmic Wall**

Description: Eggman's final mission. If you're playing the Dreamcast version, this is probably a cakewalk level. 50,00 points or less are nothing. But for the Gamecube version, the required score has been DOUBLED to 100,000 points. I can see why they raised it, but 80,000 would have been more reasonable for such a long level.

Mission 1 & 4 score tips: Even though they raised the score to about 80,000 (I forget the actual score), it's still not too bad. This level gives you lots and lots of chances to pull off 2000 bonus point combos. Don't pass up too many of them if you want that A-rank. Also be careful about the blue enemies hitting you. It's not so bad here as in Hard Mode, but you don't want to lose 2000 bonus points from a fatass blue enemy hitting you last second.

Mission 5: This is hell. A level that is an average of about 7 minutes long is no fun for an A-rank run as it is. But now you have to get 100,000 points. The GOOD news is there's more enemies. The bad news is it's much easier to die, and 100,000 is pretty difficult to get to without pulling off lots of 2000 bonus point combos. On top of that, there are more blue enemies that try to hit you while you attempt to pull off combos. The only thing I can really say for this is to practice mission 5 until you memorize where most of the blue enemies that can attack you from a distance are. This will prepare you to take them out before they can stop your combos. otherwise, you'll lose lots of bonus points. Also let me state to NOT rush this level. Take it slooooow. You will get NOTHING for time bonus.

Good luck on this one, it was the last stage A-rank I went for. It took me only 4 attempts, but when you're doing a 7 minute level while freaking out at every jump and combo, you tend to dread it. I still think 80,000 would have been more reasonable for such a lengthy level.

Metaknight Officially Banned!

Yes, that's right. Metaknight is officially banned in Brawl. Well, the official ban starts January 9th so that it does not interfere with Apex. Until then, TOs can choose whether or not to keep MK legal at their tourneys. This is pretty good news for my YT videos, since everyone always complains about MK. The URC (Unity Ruleset Committee) voted 14-0 for banning with 1 abstaining. It'll be interesting to see where this takes Brawl. Will it be for the better? Or for the worse? Stay tuned...

Upcoming Videos...

I should be starting my next group of videos tomorrow. I intend to run it uninterrupted until it's done. So that's about 30-35 videos (A little over a month). Then, I have a bunch of boss videos I'm working on for a game that I'll be uploading after that, and then after all of this, Ill be uploading tourney videos from the MK Banned tourney that happened Sept 17th.

About this video series I'm starting tomorrow...it'll either be loved, or hated lulz.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep - Vanitas LS (Optional Boss) - *Strategy*

Note: This was posted because I couldn't fit it in the description for the video(s). Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtAFV-yqLEM

There are a couple things you need to know about this fight to prepare. One, most of your commands will be useless. They will either leave you too open, are too slow, or won't do much, if any, damage. Secondly, you CANNOT walk into this fight with Cure spells. That includes Cura and Curaga. Why? Vanitas will heal every time you do, and the fight will never end this way.

The only way to counter this is to use Potions instead. Mega-Potions are very cheap for this point in the game, so go buy 99 of those. The downside is that you lose the Leaf Bracer ability, since that only works with Cure spells. What that ability does is make you invincible while healing with Cure spells, so that if you're at 1 HP you won't die while trying to heal. Not being able to safely heal makes this fight much harder. You will have to learn when it is safe to heal, or just hope he doesn't attack you. (Note that if you keep using "Retry" when you die, the items that you use during the fight count as being used, so if you keep failing too much use Continue to reset it).

Vanitas Moveset

Alright, this is what you all probably came here for. I will list all of the moves I can off the top of my head and the ways to dodge them with each character.

*New Moves*

#1. He always will start the fight off with a dark orb move. This is his most annoying and difficult to dodge move IMO, because it feels a little random. He encases himself in a dark orb and sends out clones to hit you. Being hit by one does a ton of damage (expect 1 HP) and causes Darkness for a while, which you don't want in this fight. The last part of the move he dashes out at you, which goes quite a far distance. He is completely invincible while he is in the orb.

How to Dodge (Terra): Get at a safe distance and Slide every time a clone comes out, going in a circular motion around the orb. Do not Slide too early, or the clones will follow your Slide and still hit you during the cooldown of Slide. For the last hit, just Slide towards Vanitas and he'll pass you by during your invincibility.

How to Dodge (Ven): Get at a safe distance and Dodge Roll spam around the orb as the clones come out. Because Dodge Roll does not go as far as Terra's Slide, it's harder to time getting away from them, but if you spam Dodge Roll hard enough the invincibility frames will just be too long for you to get hit 95% of the time.

How to Dodge (Aqua): Get at a safe distance and Cartwheel spam around the orb as the clones come out. Because Cartwheel does not go as far as Terra's Slide, it's harder to time getting away from them, but if you spam Cartwheel hard enough the invincibility frames will just be too long for you to get hit 95% of the time.

Note: This move can be stopped on startup! So when the fight starts, you can hit him right as he tries to do the move. If you do it too late, he will be invincible and you'll be in danger of being too close to him to safely dodge. Note that trying to run as far away as possible will not help, the clones will still come at you. Also note that he can use the move at nearly any time in the fight, and it'll be almost impossible to react to stopping it then.

#2. He has a dashing move he spams quite often where he will circle around you quickly and then try to hit you with darkness. This move seems scary, but it's his easiest to dodge move and is one of the only chances you have to relax.

How to Dodge (Terra): Simply Slide right after you see him circle around you. The timing is a little tricky to explain, but it's easy to get used to. It's better to dodge early than late.
How to Dodge (Ven): Same as Terra, except it's easier with Dodge Roll.
How to Dodge (Aqua): Same as Terra, except it's easier with Cartwheel.

Notes: He will always do one of three moves after this move. He will either start running at you to do a regular combat move, his Shotlock, or a aerial dash.
Punishable: Yes, he's open right after the move ends.

#3. He has a new Shotlock. I'm saying it's new, because it doesn't work the same as in Ven's final battle. In this, you'll hear the obvious cue of you being targeted. When this happens, go to the side of him as fast as possible and get behind him for tons of free damage! The Shotlock follows you, so even if you're behind him he will be slowly rotating towards you. However, the move does not last that long anyway.

How to Dodge (Terra): Slide to the side of him to avoid the initial hit of the move. Be careful not to Slide directly into it!
How to Dodge (Ven): Dodge Roll pretty much easily avoids this move.
How to Dodge (Aqua): Cartwheel pretty much easily avoids this move.

Notes: Be careful when going for hits. If you get locked into combos, he could rotate into you and still hit you, so you have to make sure you're directly behind him. Also note that if you get directly hit by this move, you can just stand there and press nothing and still live as you'll get hit fast enough that Second Chance/Once More will still work.
Punishable: As said, yes, it's the most punishable move against him as he's completely open from the side and behind the whole move. He will even be a little open after, but it's risky.

#4. He has a new move similar to the one he used in Ven's final battle where he will teleport around and multi slash you. This time, however, it's much faster and trickier to dodge. This move is usually a counter attack. He will continually teleport behind you and slash as many times as he seems fit.

How to Dodge (Terra): It takes a little practice, but well timed Slides will avoid this easily. It is hard to explain, so just watch Terra's video when it's up. Alternately, you can turn around and Guard one of the hits to get him to stop.
How to Dodge (Ven): Dodge Roll spam away from him. Alternately, you can turn around and Guard one of the hits to get him to stop.
How to Dodge (Aqua): Cartwheel spam away from him. Alternately, you can turn around and Guard one of the hits to get him to stop.

Punishable: If you stop it with Guard, you can use the Counter move with all chars to do damage. However, with Terra, it isn't reliable. Vanitas will sometimes do his teleport drop down slash after the Counter, and Terra will take the hit.

*Old Moves*

#1. He retains his ability to dive under ground and rise up under you. Except this time it's more dangerous. He slides towards you very fast, and when he jumps up from the ground, tons of fire balls spit out around him. The hitboxes of this are VERY weird, and it is really tricky to dodge 100% of the time.

How to Dodge (Terra): Terra has the hardest time dodging this. The best method is to wait until right before he appears under you and then Slide in a direction that is not directly moving away from the direction he is moving towards you. If you mess this up, he'll still follow your Slide and hit you when it ends.
How to Dodge (Ven): Just Dodge Roll it.
How to Dodge (Aqua): Just Cartwheel it.

Notes: The scattering fireballs have very deceiving hitboxes. Get far away from this move. You'll probably have the most trouble with this as Terra.

Punishable: I don't believe this is safely punishable.

#2. He still has his slash to blue crescent projectile move. He does this move most of the time when he's running towards you. It works the same as the others, except the blue projectile will fade after about 5-10 seconds. The projectile circles around you. Getting hit by the projectile makes your character become Confused (inverted movements) for a short time.

How to Dodge (Terra): Slide away from the slashes and Slide away again from the projectile, at an angle. There's a small chance you will still get hit if you time the first Slide wrong. Then just keep Sliding to avoid the projectile circling around to hit you.
How to Dodge (Ven): Just Dodge Roll spam to avoid this.
How to Dodge (Aqua): Just Cartwheel spam to avoid this.

Punishable: I do not believe this is safely punishable.

#3. He has that multi flame slashing attack from Ven's final battle with him. He will charge up his Keyblade and then mutli slash combo you and end it with an X-flame projectile. The projectile can slightly turn back at you.

How to Dodge (Terra): Terra yet again has a tricky time dodging this. But once you get the timing down it's pretty easy. If you blindly spam Slide, you'll get hit, because some parts of it follow you better than others. The best method is to run away while he's charging and keep running while he does the first dash slash, then Slide again shortly after.
How to Dodge (Ven): Dodge Roll spam away from him.
How to Dodge (Aqua): Cartwheel spam away from him.

Notes: If he gets hit during this move, he may teleport into another move. Be careful of this.

Punishable: He is open slightly after the first slash. He will likely get stopped if you hit him then. It is risky to do this though. He is open after the X-flame projectile, but do not try more than one hit at risk of him instant teleport attacking you.

#4. He still has that multi aerial dash move from Ven's final battle. This is a very easy to avoid move as long as you react to it decently. He does this move almost always randomly after the darkness circle dash move. He can do this 1-3 times in a row.

How to Dodge (All): Simply Slide/Dodge Roll/Cartwheel to the side right before he dashes at you.

Punishable: I am unsure if this is punishable. Most of the time, you will not be close enough to punish him anyway.

#5. He randomly has a couple other moves, such as the darkness lightning and triple fireball move. He will usually do these as part of another combo, such as if you interrupt his fire multi slash move (#3). Standard dodging moves apply to these, you should know how to already from earlier fights, they work the same, although I believe the fireballs are Fission Firaga fireballs, so they follow you quite a bit.

#6. He retains his counter attacks. At any time during a combo he may teleport combo you. One is the drop down ice move, the other is the teleport to the side/back of you and slash at you. because of this, do not get caught in combos much.

Cheap Tactics

There are a couple cheap tactics to beat VLS if you are having trouble. Only use these if you want to suck all the fun and challenge out of the fight.

#1. This one applies to only Ven. You must first obtain his Tornado spell. I won't go into details on how, look up a FAQ. The trick is to cast Tornado on Vanitas at the beginning before he does his dark orb move. If you do it right, Vanitas will be caught in it and take 50% HP damage! Then all you need is one other good hit with it to take the rest off.

Do take note that this method does require a little bit of good timing, as if you miss, Vanitas will surely hit you and likely kill you. For the second use of Tornado, you can easily get him with it if you lure him into a Mine Square that launches him. You will have to react fast though!

#2. The second method, while untested by myself, is to hide behind one of the big rock pillars. Vanitas apparently has a hard time getting around it, and you can pelt him with Strike Raid through it. I have not tested this, as I've said, so I cannot confirm if it works, but if it does it sucks the fun out of the fight. Do beware if he uses his Dark Orb move, it will still hit you (this I have tested).

#3. With Aqua, you can use her Seeker Mine to slam Vanitas with it while he's using his Shotlock. If you use Doubleflight, you cannot be hit, and therefore can spam Seeker Mine from above 1-3 times to do major damage!

That's about it. Good luck! Remember, Vanitas is rather predictable once you figure out his patterns!

Upcoming Brawl Videos?

I'm running low on replays. It's because I haven't been really uploading or saving many replays to catch up on the huge backlog I had. Now that the backlog is almost gone, I'll be getting a ton of replays at DNA #19, which will be MK banned! So hopefully we will have tons of interesting sets to watch, especially since doubles won't be MK/Snake only.

However, I plan to start uploading something else Brawl related I've had for a few months...you'll see what soon!

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep - True Final Boss (Final Episode) - *Strategy*

Note: This was posted because I couldn't fit it in the description for the video. Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0wiPZcMy6g

You're going to want to try to walk into this fight around LV30 or higher if you can. Otherwise your own means of useful damage will be Dark Firaga reflection, which won't be present in form 2. Your best keyblade for this is likely the one you're handed in the Final Episode.

For commands, I suggest Seeker Mine, at least 1. Mine Square works as well, but not as good. Triple Firaga or Triple Blizzaga work great for this fight. Thundaga and Thundaga Shot are next best as well. You may want to pack 2 Curagas just in case too.

For the first form, 90% of the moves are the same as in Terra's. The only move he doesn't retain as far as I can tell is his giant Meteor spam attack. I will list his attacks below and how to dodge each one.

PHASE 1

*Dark Firaga 1*

Description: He jumps up in the air and shoots a blast of Dark Firagas at you. If one hits you, the rest will hit you!
How to dodge: You dodge this by just simply Guarding it back at Terranort for free damage. The damage is static depending on how many hit him, so even at LV1 you'll do big damage! Cartwheel can dodge this easily as well, but it's best to Guard it.
Notes: Just beware, he likes to do his Dark Haze dashes after getting hit by this. There's a small chance you could be hit during your ending lag of Guard. However, it's not nearly as tough as with Terra.

*Dark Haze*

Description: A dark dashing move, usually will be used more than once in a row. It is weak, but he is invincible during this move.
How to dodge: Just Cartwheel out of the way for best results. Guard works too, but is not as reliable.
Notes: If you lure him so that the move ends right near you, it will bait him into doing a regular move right after. This is bad if you Guard the Dark Haze dash because if he finishes it too close to you, his next attack will hit you.

*Ars Solum*

Description: He unleashes a major combo. If one hit gets you, the whole combo will hit you. Each hit does a good amount of damage.
How to dodge: You can Guard this, which should stun him and allow you to counter with a hit. This won't do much damage though, Cartwheeling away from it allows you to finish with a stronger attack.
Notes: If you Cartwheel from the move 3 times fast enough, you'll have enough time to put down Seeker Mines, where Terranort will attack into them and take massive damage. The timing takes practice, but it's well worth it. If you do it wrong, you'll get hit or his move will stop before he gets to it. Another great punish is to just keep Cartwheeling away, and if you're at a safe distance, hit him with Triple Firaga (or Triple Blizzaga) right before he finishes. This does almost as much as Seeker Mine.

*Quake 1*

Description: He swings his keyblade up as he summons a giant boulder type Quake move from the ground.
How to dodge: You can Cartwheel away or Guard this. Guarding is a great idea, because Terranort can follow up with another move. Cartwheel is best option.
Notes: If you do Guard + counter, it won't always work.

PHASE 2

After you take out a certain amount of HP, he will start doing new moves and go into his next phase. Some of these moves won't happen until a little later, but I'll group them all together anyway.

*Dark Firaga 2*

Description: He jumps up, and shoots out Dark Firaga while spinning around. The Dark Firagas will home in on you, and he shoots out a ton for the last group.
How to dodge: The best method to dodge this is to Cartwheel around until he does the final wave of them, where you can then Guard them back at him for major damage. The timing is tricky, but not too hard if you watch how he moves right before the final wave of Dark Firagas.
Notes: If he is hit at all during this move, he will stop it. You can Guard the first part easily to stop him and deal damage, but it's not as much and if you mess up, you'll get hit. For the final wave, make sure you're not too close or far away. If you are too far away he will do another attack before anything hits him. Also be very careful if he does this move with his back to the wall. If he does, some or most of the Dark Firagas will hit the wall, making your Guard attempts potentially miss. Best answer to this is to just Cartwheel the whole thing if that happens.

*Dark Impulse Combo*

Description: He quickly does a multi-hit attack from Terra's Dark Impulse Command Style. The last part of the combo is Terranort going underground and homing in on you and emerging when right below you.
How to dodge: Cartwheel away, Guard is not reliable here. It happens very fast, so you'll have to pretty much Cartwheel spam before he does a move just to be safe. Cartwheel right over him for the last hit to avoid being hit.
Notes: Be careful of the arm move, it ignores Second Chance/Once More for some reason. I believe the last hit of this when he comes up from the ground cannot kill you. Before the final hit when he goes underground, you have enough time to put down a Seeker Mine and lure his last hit to emerge right on top of it for some good damage.

*Ultima Cannon*

Description: His keyblade transforms into a giant cannon and shoots out a giant energy ball, which detonates shortly after.
How to dodge: This move is weird, and I don't fully understand it. The way I dodge it is to Cartwheel as far away from him as possible as fast as possible. Even after the energy ball comes out, Cartwheel spam hard. Sometimes I still get hit, not sure why. But Cartwheel spam works fine most of the time. The hitboxes are weird, though. I don't believe Guard does anything against this move.

*Meteor*

Description: He summons a giant meteor that crashes down into the ground hard.
How to dodge: This move is really rare. Like Ultima Cannon, Cartwheel spam is best. Try to Cartwheel as fast as you can away from the Meteor.

*Curaga*

Description: He heals himself, for about 20% of an HP bar.
How to dodge: You don't have to dodge this and cannot stop it.
Notes: He does this mostly on the last 2-3 bars of HP. After that he stops.

That's about it for his major moves. He has a random 3 hit combo, a Guard and counter, and a random slash move, but nothing really special about them.

Random Notes (From Terranort strategy post for Terra):
- Terranort is rarely able to be stunned after Ars Solum or the 3 hit combo. Stun Guarding + Counter Hammer is still best option.
- Sometimes if he gets launched (by a Mine move most likely) he will get out of the stun and teleport next to you for most likely Ars Solum combo. Be careful of this! It may be just because you did too much damage too fast.
- For his Dark Haze, you can still get hit even with Guard if he starts it right next to you.

***FORM 2***

This should be familiar to KH1 players. Terranort is accompanied by that dark heartless. This form is actually easier than the last fight. Only at low levels can this be tough due to how time consuming it would be. The trick to this fight is to just wait for Terranort to do anything and punish.

Moves that Terranort still has: Ars Solum and Dark Haze. I don't believe he keeps anything else, though I could be wrong.

New moves I will list below and how to dodge. I don't know the proper names, so I'll be just listing the moves and not titling them.

#1. The dark heartless will disappear. When it does this, it will appear under where ever you are and attack from below. Well timed Cartwheels avoid this easily. Doing the Cartwheel about a half a second when you see it appear is how to dodge it. It will do this numerous times before stopping. Before the start up of the move, you are free to slam Terranort with an attack or two. If you act fast enough, you can hit him with a Seeker Mine (stand right in front of him) AND Triple Firaga/Blizzaga before you have to start dodging. Also, note that you can hit him with one move afterwards as well.

#2. The dark heartless will shoot out blue projectiles that go towards you. cartwheel once out of the way to dodge. If you're slick, you can get one hit in during them. It will do this 1-3 times.

#3. Later on in the fight, the dark heartless will hold two dark orbs and toss them at you one at a time. Cartwheel to avoid these easily. I believe Guard works too. If you get hit, it has the Darkness status effect, so be careful.

#4. Later on, the dark heartless will do the famous "Submit" move from KH1. Dodge this by just Cartwheeling out of the way. This move isnt' that fast, it's easy to avoid.

#5. If you try to recklessly attack, Terranort will get the dark heartless to attack you with a swipe move. Cartwheel avoids this best.

#6. At any time, Terranort may break lose from the dark heartless and attack you directly with most likely Ars Solum. This is really hard to react to, best to always be Cartwheeling when close to Terranort.

That is about all that is note worthy. If you beat the first form, this form shouldn't be too much trouble, just lots more HP to deal with.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep Hacked Fights?

It's a possibility. I haven't looked into how to use codes or do hacked fights yet for PSP & KHBBS, but I will after I'm completely done with all the regular challenges I'm doing in BBS. I'm uncertain if my old PSP will be able to handle it, but I guess we'll find out. Just know that it's a possibility.

Youtube's New Player Is Garbage

Seriously, who are the idiots behind all these YT changes these days? Things just get worse and worse. You can adapt to the stupid changes, but they just keep doing more.

The absolute biggest issue with the new player that frustrates me to no end is that when you mouse over the video, the bottom bar COVERS the bottom of the video. Really YT? You can't just have an extension for it on the bottom? You have to BLOCK OUT the bottom of the video so that all annotations are unviewable unless the user mouses out of the video for about 5 seconds?

The second issue, while not as big, is the bottom bar just straight out collasping when your cursor isn't on the video. What if you want to increase volume? Must hover over the video! VERY annoying, and no reason.

Last, but not least, the way you switch a video from 360p/480p to 720p/1080p requires you to once again, MOUSE OVER THE FUCKING VIDEO to bring up that bar, and then instead of hovering over the current resolution like before, now you have to actually CLICK the GOD DAMN button and click the new resolution you want. WHY IS YOUTUBE MAKING SHIT HARDER TO DO?

It just baffles me the way YT thinks.

1400th Video Special is Done!

Looks like my 1400th video is done. It's set to upload July 20th, assuming I don't miss any days of uploading. No spoilers on what it is, but I think it came out pretty well.

The only problem is my 1400th video comes up in the middle of tourney videos for a tourney. I have an idea of what I should do about that, but I guess we'll see. I may take off the rest of the week from uploading videos after uploading my 1400th video.

Clash of the Titans 5 - Tourney Videos

Hey everyone. Those of you who don't know yet, I went to the COT5 tourney last weekend. A bunch of videos from that tourney were recorded of me. So I'll post them all here! I'll also post other NE player sets as well! Here are mine:

Doubles

*Pools*

Nasty & MPrime Vs Bizkit & KingToon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnJ7frAU6PI
Bizkit & KingToon Vs Patg & EE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG01p5gHOg8
Boss & Logic Vs Bizkit & KingToon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMTRwnAXV2o

*Bracket*

Bizkit & KingToon Vs Lain & Shugo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpffrANiAno

Singles

Bizkit Vs Pwii: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjjHPJpFSC4
BIZKIT VS M2K: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26l_8-6rA14
Note: HD & Commentary version will be uploaded in the future
Bizkit Vs M2K (Crowd Hype): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP5Zv-YGIBg

Other NE Players

*Kiwi*

*Pools*

Kiwi Vs Nicole: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ldSzdvgc8o

Kiwi Vs Lain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE93lKgJzGw

*Amatuer Bracket*

Kiwi Vs Clai: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d55mMIluO04

Kiwi Vs Sails: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=685TMBG1DM4

Kiwi Vs Tiger: Coming Soon

*Friendly*

M2K Vs Kiwi & Nicole & Izumi with Pokeballs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNi_hwNqgN0

*Bloodcross*

*Pools*

Bloodcross Vs Logic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1zvczOxxKQ

Bloodcross Vs Sharky: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D-3w16ORrQ

Bloodcross Vs F00LY: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVOqItuyO5w

*Sails*

*Amateur Bracket*

Sails Vs M@v: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-aawfOEkFE
Sails Vs TKCK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JCL81RRQo4
Sails Vs Kiwi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=685TMBG1DM4