![Cuphead - Grim Matchstick in Fiery Frolic - S Rank [Expert] @MegaPhilX](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/u3xrgK7NbNY/maxresdefault.jpg)
Uploaded August 2020 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Still my favorite boss fight in the game. On Expert difficulty, I find that the differences kinda play in your favor. At least for the second and third phase of the battle. Besides the ring attacks being faster, the main difference is that the clouds scroll in the opposite direction. This makes your life difficult for the first phase but if you bring the Roundabout, you can deal plenty of damage while concentrating on dodging his attacks. The main thing to do is watching out for his tail. This attack still takes me by surprise. Listen for that warning noise. This phase is made tricky by the fact that you have to perform 3 parries to get the S Rank, So you have to make this phase last until you can get 3 parries from the energy ring attacks.
For the second and third phase, just bring the Lobber and you'll be alright. Watch out for the little scream his fire minions make before attacking you and try to stay at the top of the screen for the third phase while you pelt him with Lobber EX attacks. His Flamethrower attack always occurs in the middle of the screen horizontally.
store.playstation.com/#!/tid=CUSA20499_00
Still my favorite boss fight in the game. On Expert difficulty, I find that the differences kinda play in your favor. At least for the second and third phase of the battle. Besides the ring attacks being faster, the main difference is that the clouds scroll in the opposite direction. This makes your life difficult for the first phase but if you bring the Roundabout, you can deal plenty of damage while concentrating on dodging his attacks. The main thing to do is watching out for his tail. This attack still takes me by surprise. Listen for that warning noise. This phase is made tricky by the fact that you have to perform 3 parries to get the S Rank, So you have to make this phase last until you can get 3 parries from the energy ring attacks.
For the second and third phase, just bring the Lobber and you'll be alright. Watch out for the little scream his fire minions make before attacking you and try to stay at the top of the screen for the third phase while you pelt him with Lobber EX attacks. His Flamethrower attack always occurs in the middle of the screen horizontally.
store.playstation.com/#!/tid=CUSA20499_00
![Cuphead - Grim Matchstick in Fiery Frolic - S Rank [Expert]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/u3xrgK7NbNY/mqdefault.jpg "Cuphead - Grim Matchstick in Fiery Frolic - S Rank [Expert]
Still my favorite boss fight in the game. On Expert difficulty, I find that the differences kinda play in your favor. At least for the second and third phase of the battle. Besides the ring attacks being faster, the main difference is that the clouds scroll in the opposite direction. This makes your life difficult for the first phase but if you bring the Roundabout, you can deal plenty of damage while concentrating on dodging his attacks. The main thing to do is watching out for his tail. This attack still takes me by surprise. Listen for that warning noise. This phase is made tricky by the fact that you have to perform 3 parries to get the S Rank, So you have to make this phase last until you can get 3 parries from the energy ring attacks.
For the second and third phase, just bring the Lobber and youll be alright. Watch out for the little scream his fire minions make before attacking you and try to stay at the top of the screen for the third phase while you pelt him with Lobber EX attacks. His Flamethrower attack always occurs in the middle of the screen horizontally.
https://store.playstation.com/#!/tid=CUSA20499_00")
![Omega Weapon [No Invincibility Items] & more... [COMMENTATED] - Final Fantasy VIII Remastered](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/uLnPDO4P48Q/mqdefault.jpg "Omega Weapon [No Invincibility Items] & more... [COMMENTATED] - Final Fantasy VIII Remastered
Go to 33:30 for a NO COMMENTARY attempt - More information further in the description
00:00 Intro and Character Setup
04:54 Triggering the Boss Fight
05:45 Battle Using No Invincibility Items
20:17 Battle Using Invincibility Items
33:30 Battle Using No Invincibility Items (Close Call Edition)
50:18 Bonus: The End
Preparing:
Junction 100 Deaths to Status Defense to avoid LV5 Death if your characters have a level that is a multiple of 5.
Boost your HP to 9999.
Boost your speed and strength as much as you can using junctioned magic or character abilities. You can refine Ultimas, Auras, Full-Lifes, etc. from various items.
Use Aura to get Squall/Zell/Irvine to use their limit breaks as often as possible.
Have Lion Heart equipped to be able to use the limit break of the same name which will be your best move to deal damage. Unfortunately whether Squall uses it or not is random...
Equip the Defend command on two characters (Defend is learned by Brothers and Cactuar. You cant teach Defend to other GFs unfortunately)
To boost my speed further and get as many actions as possible without the boss being able to do something, here I have Auto-Haste and Auto-Protect on everyone.
To teach GFs Auto-Haste, use an Accelerator item. You can get Accelerators by modding the Kiros Card.
To teach GFs Auto-Protect, use a Steel Curtain. You can get a Steel Curtain from refining 20 Adamantines using Edens GFAbl Med-RF ability.
You can get your rare cards back from the CC Club members in the Ragnarok in endgame if you completed the CC Club side quest. This allows you to farm powerful items and abilities.
To get Megalixirs:
https://guides.gamercorner.net/ffviii/items/megalixir
Fighting the boss:
The boss attack order goes as as such:
- Always starts from LV5 Death (Kill any character whose level is a multiple of 5 (Bad news if you are at LV100))
- Meteor (Non-elemental magic damage to random characters)
- Megido Flame (9998 DMG to everyone)
- Gravija (Ineffective if you are at 1 HP)
-Terra Break (More often than not will kill everyone who is not defending)
- Ultima (Heavy non-elemental magic damage to everyone)
- Light Pillar (Kill one character)
- Start over again from Meteor
The boss might insert random physical attacks and LV5 Death into this mess every once in a while. Not much of a problem if you have decent Evade stats.
Start off by casting Meltdown on him to maximize all further damage. (I dont like to summon Doomtrain because it takes longer.
Use the boss wasted turn at the beginning as an opportunity to cast Aura on your damage-dealers at the beginning.
Use the item command to consume a Megalixir after the boss casts Meteor in preparation to survive Megido Flame which deals 9998 damage (You have to be at full 9999HP to survive). Use the situation of having your characters at 1 HP as an opportunity to trigger your limit breaks if youre not under the effects of Aura.
Keep dealing damage but prepare to use Defend before the boss uses Terra Break. It will make the character invulnerable to physical attacks until he/she takes another action. Gravija always comes before Terra Break so remember this as your cue to use Defend. Heal up you dead character after Terra Break to survive Ultima that comes after. Defend wont protect you from Ultimas magic damage.
Light Pillar kills one character so be ready to heal up as well.
Have your support character (Rinoa in my case) in standby if you know a character will die so that you can quickly heal.
If you really dont know what to do with a certain characters turn and Squall/Zell/Irvine is not on Aura, cast it so youll have more opportunities to deal damage and take priority over the boss actions. Or wait and see what happens.
You can use a simple Phoenix Down or Life spell to bring a KOed character back if you know a super strong attack is not coming too soon. You can use the low HP of the resurrected character as an opportunity to perform a limit break.
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![X Challenge Vol.2 Stage 7 [Hard] [COMMENTATED] - Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/w_ppzqtyvF8/mqdefault.jpg "X Challenge Vol.2 Stage 7 [Hard] [COMMENTATED] - Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2
Commentated version
Version with no commentary: https://youtu.be/FpT922FpoQo
7-1 Equip the Electric Spark. Keep charging it to hit Armadillo and eventually remove his armor. The important thing though is to hit Turtloid with it because 2 hits from the charged version will destroy the green gems on his shell. Try to time your charged spark to take out all the missiles he fires at you. After than, just move in and spam mid-charged shots on him. Focus on repeating that same pattern on Turtloid. Eventually Armadillo will just fall to the charged sparks you keep firing. Remember you can duck under Armadillos shots.
7-2 Charge the Spinning Blade and keep using it on Tiger. Staying in one of the upper corners is a good strategy. Just keep watching Tiger and be ready for whatever he does. Penguin can sneak up on you so try to watch for him when he gets too close. This one is tricky. You just have to practice and somehow pull it off.
7-3 I like to focus on getting rid of Scaravich first. How to do this? Arrange for Scaravich to come from the left side of the room while you camp as far as you can in the lower right corner. Duck. Do NOT camp in the lower left corner. If you stay there, Sheldon can throw his bouncing shells directly at you. He cant do this to you if you are in the lower right corner for some reason.
MAKE SURE YOU JUMP AND HOVER WHEN SHELDONS SHELLS ARE THROWN AT YOU.
So while you are in the lower right corner, watch and listen to Scaravich and what he does. Watch the type of ball he is rolling. Depending on the ball hes pushing around, you have to do different things. The goal is to keep him coming from the left side. If you hit him while he is rolling his ball, hell switch sides and escape to the side from which he came from. DO NOT FIRE AT HIM until you see the ball he is pushing.
When Scaravich is off screen, listen to him. If he screams, that means that hes pushing a large ball so prepare for it. It also means its not going to be a lava ball. So you can safely shoot.
If the ball is light brown: Just shoot a fully charged shot while he is pushing his ball. The shot will go through the ball and hit him. When he escapes, keep firing mid-charged shots to deal more damage to him.
If the ball is purple: It is armored so your buster shots wont go through. However, the plasma trail of the fully charged shot will hit him if you time the shot to hit the ball while its rolling. If you fail to hit him and you see that Scaravich will hit you or manage to cross the room, fire an anchor so that it will hit Scaravich. The anchor goes through everything.
If the ball is made of lava: This is why you must not fire until you see the ball. When hit by one of your shots, lava balls will cause a big ball of rock to fall on top of you. If you see that hes coming with a lava ball, wait for an opening in Sheldons attacks to fire a charged shot at Scaravich, then dash forward to avoid the falling rock. This will make Scaravich go back from where he came from at the same time. Note that when carrying a lava ball, Scaravich will never scream.
Sometimes Scaravich will briefly stop pushing his ball to do nothing or shoot you. If he does that, wait for him to start pushing again before you fire at him.
When Scaravich is defeated, you have to know how to react to Sheldons attacks.
Position yourself on one of the top ropes and wait to see what Sheldon will do.
If he creates a clone of himself before disappearing, hell do one of two thing:
- Simply try to hit you from both sides at ground level. Just stay at the top of the room and youre fine.
- Throw two shells that will bounce around the room. To dodge this, either head to the corners and duck, or do a full jump towards the middle of the room from the top rope and hover when at the apex of your jump. Dont move. your hover will last through the entire attack. I prefer doing the hover thing.
If he starts bouncing around the room without creating a clone of himself, just wait and dash jump to the other rope when hes about to bounce to your side of the room.
When he goes to ground level to throw his shells like boomerangs, dash jump from the rope to the ground behind him and spam shots to damage him.
When below half health, hell add 2 attacks to his repertoire:
If he creates energy barriers around himself, fire a fully charged shot at him. The plasma trail will hit him 3 times. Jump to ground level and wait for the plasma to hit him 3 times, then fire an anchor at him to cancel his attack.
If he appears in the center of the room and starts charging up, jump and hover to avoid getting hit by the 4 shells, then drop to the center of the room. Wait for him to come out of his shells, then fire an anchor at him if he comes your way.
Mega Man X Legacy Collection
https://store.playstation.com/#!/en-ca/tid=CUSA10788_00")
![X Challenge Vol.1 Stage 2 [Hard] [COMMENTATED] - Mega Man X Legacy Collection 1](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/yB3TY-Yc9Mw/mqdefault.jpg "X Challenge Vol.1 Stage 2 [Hard] [COMMENTATED] - Mega Man X Legacy Collection 1
This is the commentated version
VERSION WITH NO COMMENTARY: https://youtu.be/z5HIVllIXdM
This video shows my first successful run of X Challenge Stage 2 on Volume 1.
2-1 My strategy is to bring the Aiming laser and move back and forth. This will trigger Storm Owl to spawn on one side of the screen or the other (Listen for the sound of him flapping his wings). Then hit him with the Aiming Laser. Switch briefly to another weapon and back to the Aiming Laser to reset the position of the aiming cursor to be able to quickly catch Owl if he spawns at ground level. This makes it easier to master the fight without having to deal with the bad controls of the weapon.
2-2 Climb up to a corner and stay there while charging the Spinning Blade. Fire the weapon when Tiger is either below you or flying to you in front. If you dropped down for whatever reason and you need to climb back up the wall, make sure you dont do it while Pegasus is too close to the wall. Otherwise youll bump into him while climbing. DO NOT COLLIDE WITH PEGASUS! When Tiger goes berserk, switch to the other wall if necessary. Then repeat the same strategy as before. The difference with him going berserk is that now you might have to improvise a bit. Once Pegasus is alone, the only danger is if he decides to fly off-screen to fly at you from different angles. Listen to the sound effect to try to react to which way hes going to come from. Attack him quickly with medium charge shots to dispose of him.
2-3 This is one of the worst / most frustrating to me, and the unique battle to Stage 2 in Volume 1. Kraken keeps trying to tackle you while Sheldon goes apeshit all over the room. You do NOT want to get hit by ANYTHING Sheldon does. As youll see from my mistakes in this video, the damage he does is insane.
My strategy is as follows:
Bring the Chameleon Sting. I dont like the Goo Shaver as its hard to use and gives Kraken too many i-frames. You need to get rid of Kraken fast in my opinion. And my other weapon slots are taken for the other two fights.
Start off by firing charged buster shots at Kraken while he remains fairly calm and doesnt move horizontally
When Sheldon throws the shells like boomerang, stay ducked and try to keep damaging Kraken with medium charged shot or fully charged one.
Sheldon always alternates between his shell boomerang attack and one of those 3 attacks:
- Bouncing Shell - He bounces around the room in his shell, Armadillo style. [To dodge this, go to the lower right corner of the room (Avoid the lower left corner)]
- Dual Bouncing Shell - Same as the above but with two shells in a symmetrical fashion. [To dodge, go to the lower right corner of the room (Avoid the lower left corner)]
- Dual Shell Smash - He teleports to ground level right next to you, with a clone of himself on the other side & tries to hit you with his shell at close range. [To dodge, try to stay in the center and simply jump. Do NOT move horizontally.]
Keep trying to quickly attack Kraken with medium charged shots until he is close to 1/2 health. All while doing your best to dodge Sheldons attacks.
Once Kraken is close to 1/2 health, start charging the Chameleon Sting. Do it by pressing the button from the pause menu to avoid wasting ammo. You have exactly enough for 4 uses of the invincibility mode. If you fire ONE stray uncharged Chameleon Sting, youll only have 3 uses of the invincibility mode.
Activate invincibility when you have a clear shot at Kraken at ground level, then mash the buster to damage him as much as you can before your invincibility runs out. You might have to duck to hit him if he decides to create electricity on the ground.
If Kraken goes to the sides to perform his ultimate attack, do your best to fire your buster shots at him. You can hit him from the apex of your jump or by climbing the wall. If you see hes going for these side attacks while your next invincibility is ready, wait for him to come back down before activating invincibility. It is crucial that you damage Kraken fast enough before you are overwhelmed.
With Kraken down, keep dodging Sheldon and attacking him when you have an opportunity.
When Sheldon is below 1/2 health, your biggest damage opportunity is when he uses the Guard Shell. But watch out for the counter shots. You can see I got hit by one here. One more and I was dead.
When he uses the 4-Shell attack, personally I dont wanna risk trying to hit him. I just duck and wait for the attack to end. If you accidentally hit the shells, theyll counter-fire at you and he moves too fast to risk getting hit by colliding with him. If you somehow made it here with the Metal Anchor, Sheldon becomes a joke since you can cancel everything he does.
Hard Mode bosses deal more damage (especially collision damage) and they take less damage as well. You have to practice and learn how the bosses work. A lot.
megaphilx.com")
![Slide! Slide! [HD Edition]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/yMh-JhbJqXw/mqdefault.jpg "Slide! Slide! [HD Edition]
This is an animation I made to replicate the in-game animation but in higher resolution. Made in Clip Studio Paint EX. This is the overseas version.
Japanese Version: https://youtu.be/34nhNk0KsHc
The jumping counter part: https://youtu.be/DVyoXroJfAk
My Pixiv:
https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/16156310
All my stuff:
http://megaphilx.com/
https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/16156310
https://twitter.com/MegaPhilX
http://megaphilx.com/index.php/home/art/illustrations/
http://megaphilx.deviantart.com
If you are interested in commissions, here is more information on my prices and terms:
http://megaphilx.com/index.php/home/art/commissions/
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![X Challenge Vol.2 Stage 3 [Hard] [NO COMMENTARY] - Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/z0StPiyyaHw/mqdefault.jpg "X Challenge Vol.2 Stage 3 [Hard] [NO COMMENTARY] - Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2
No commentary version
Commentated version: https://youtu.be/tMWsPhLZGow
Again, Ive beaten this challenge twice. This time due to forgetting to record the first time.
The worst part of this is dealing with Vile in 3-3. He fires a hard-to-dodge spread of shots that paralyze you and he can also grab you which can lead to disastrous and frustrating consequences. Practice, practice, practice!
Here is a couple of tips for 3-3 that I didnt mention.
- When using the Ray Splasher, try to make one salvo hit Vile as well as High Max. Saves ammo and deals damage to Vile too.
- If you are going to switch sides with Vile, dash under Vile right as he starts a jump to get under his fire easily. Learn to time this.
- Remember Viles fires goes after you when it lands. Use the Hover ability if you have to.
- Vile will sometimes randomly dash towards and grab you. He usually does it after paralyzing you but he might do it completely out of nowhere.
- Its okay to get grabbed by Vile sometimes. For example, if one of High Maxs energy orbs is coming your way and there wont be a way to dodge it, it better to get grabbed by Vile, since this does less damage than taking the orb in your face.
- I know it wont happen all the time, but try to lure Vile to be on the same side as High Max, far away from you. This is the best situation possible. This is when you can both stun High Max and hit both of them with the Ray Splasher.
- After creating his shield, High Max will either drop down to ground level and proceed to fly towards the other side of the room sweeping the whole room with his gigantic hit box; fire out an energy orb; or start charging to send his shied at you. Learn how to deal with these attacks. The energy orb stops your charged shots so try to shoot him before the orb comes out or after dodging it. Watch out when he sends his shield after you, both parts of the shield will come out horizontally. And they hurt a lot. Stunning+hurting him quickly after that will prevent the shield from attacking you.
Hard Mode bosses deal more damage (especially collision damage) and they take less damage as well. You have to practice and learn how the bosses work. A lot.
Mega Man X Legacy Collection
https://store.playstation.com/#!/en-ca/tid=CUSA10788_00")
![X Challenge Vol.1 Stage 2 [Hard] [NO COMMENTARY] - Mega Man X Legacy Collection 1](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/z5HIVllIXdM/mqdefault.jpg "X Challenge Vol.1 Stage 2 [Hard] [NO COMMENTARY] - Mega Man X Legacy Collection 1
This is the version with no commentary
COMMENTATED VERSION: https://youtu.be/yB3TY-Yc9Mw
This video shows my first successful run of X Challenge Stage 2 on Volume 1.
2-1 My strategy is to bring the Aiming laser and move back and forth. This will trigger Storm Owl to spawn on one side of the screen or the other (Listen for the sound of him flapping his wings). Then hit him with the Aiming Laser. Switch briefly to another weapon and back to the Aiming Laser to reset the position of the aiming cursor to be able to quickly catch Owl if he spawns at ground level. This makes it easier to master the fight without having to deal with the bad controls of the weapon.
2-2 Climb up to a corner and stay there while charging the Spinning Blade. Fire the weapon when Tiger is either below you or flying to you in front. If you dropped down for whatever reason and you need to climb back up the wall, make sure you dont do it while Pegasus is too close to the wall. Otherwise youll bump into him while climbing. DO NOT COLLIDE WITH PEGASUS! When Tiger goes berserk, switch to the other wall if necessary. Then repeat the same strategy as before. The difference with him going berserk is that now you might have to improvise a bit. Once Pegasus is alone, the only danger is if he decides to fly off-screen to fly at you from different angles. Listen to the sound effect to try to react to which way hes going to come from. Attack him quickly with medium charge shots to dispose of him.
2-3 This is one of the worst / most frustrating to me, and the unique battle to Stage 2 in Volume 1. Kraken keeps trying to tackle you while Shelldon goes apeshit all over the room. You do NOT want to get hit by ANYTHING Shelldon does. As youll see from my mistakes in this video, the damage he does is insane.
My strategy is as follows:
Bring the Chameleon Sting. I dont like the Goo Shaver as its hard to use and gives Kraken too many i-frames. You need to get rid of Kraken fast in my opinion. And my other weapon slots are taken for the other two fights.
Start off by firing charged buster shots at Kraken while he remains fairly calm and doesnt move horizontally
When Shelldon throws the shells like boomerang, stay ducked and try to keep damaging Kraken with medium charged shot or fully charged one.
Shelldon always alternates between his shell boomerang attack and one of those 3 attacks:
- Bouncing Shell - He bounces around the room in his shell, Armadillo style. [To dodge this, go to the lower right corner of the room (Avoid the lower left corner)]
- Dual Bouncing Shell - Same as the above but with two shells in a symmetrical fashion. [To dodge, go to the lower right corner of the room (Avoid the lower left corner)]
- Dual Shell Smash - He teleports to ground level right next to you, with a clone of himself on the other side & tries to hit you with his shell at close range. [To dodge, try to stay in the center and simply jump. Do NOT move horizontally.]
Keep trying to quickly attack Kraken with medium charged shots until he is close to 1/2 health. All while doing your best to dodge Shelldons attacks.
Once Kraken is close to 1/2 health, start charging the Chameleon Sting. Do it by pressing the button from the pause menu to avoid wasting ammo. You have exactly enough for 4 uses of the invincibility mode. If you fire ONE stray uncharged Chamelon Sting, youll only have 3 uses of the invincibility mode.
Activate invincibility when you have a clear shot at Kraken at ground level, then mash the buster to damage him as much as you can before your invincibility runs out. You might have to duck to hit him if he decides to create electricity on the ground.
If Kraken goes to the sides to perform his ultimate attack, do your best to fire your buster shots at him. You can hit him from the apex of your jump or by climbing the wall. If you see hes going for these side attacks while your next invincibility is ready, wait for him to come back down before activating invincibility. It is crucial that you damage Kraken fast enough before you are overwhelmed.
With Kraken down, keep dodging Shelldon and attacking him when you have an opportunity.
When Shelldon is below 1/2 health, your biggest damage opportunity is when he uses the Guard Shell. But watch out for the counter shots. You can see I got hit by one here. One more and I was dead.
When he uses the 4-Shell attack, personally I dont wanna risk trying to hit him. I just duck and wait for the attack to end. If you accidentally hit the shells, theyll counter-fire at you and he moves too fast to risk getting hit by colliding with him. If you somehow made it here with the Metal Anchor, Shelldon becomes a joke since you can cancel everything he does.
Hard Mode bosses deal more damage (especially collision damage) and they take less damage as well. You have to practice and learn how the bosses work. A lot.
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