Any4-B
Fortunately this boss fight is completely skippable.
Optimal
- Swap to Checkers while inside the cannons. You can buffer the swap at the start of the level.
- Hold jump while flying through all the autofire cannons in order to fire them faster.
- Dropdashing over the second and third cannons to the fourth is slower than just riding them.
- If you want, you can grab the checkpoint for safety. You can also grab Marbles here if you took damage at the end of Smoky Squall.
- Do not move too far right before ascending to the top of the screen. A good way to ensure you don't go too far is to do the first two jumps of the quad jump straight up before pressing right.
- It's important to time your dropdash fails well, because if you fall too far you will trigger the boss fight. The flight over the trigger can be accomplished in 2-4 failed dropdashes, with 2 being more aggressive and 4 being more safe. Each one adds slightly less than a second.
Assuming you enter with both buddies, a good time in this level is (9 + N) seconds, where N is the number of failed dropdashes you use to go over the fight (so 11-13 seconds).
Here is an image of the level to see where the cutscene trigger is. The arrows indicate the position of the trigger. Be aware that the background images move due to parallax, so they are not extremely reliable position indicators, but the long vertical pipe on the power box provides a decent lineup.
