bosshogre's Strategy Guide v1.1

Version 1.0: modified December 3, 2018 
->For now I've just put together some strategies I use against all the bosses in the game. More to come later for the platforming stages!

Version 1.1: modified June 3, 2020
->General section added

~*~General Stuff~*~

--At the end of the waterfall, hold up rather than down to save 1 second (the pterodactyl de-spawns faster)

--On the level select map, hold the face button down ahead of time in order to enter a stage at the soonest possible moment when stepping onto it

~*~Bosses~*~

This guide will refer to bosses as follows:

Level 1: First T-Rex
Level 2: Plant 
Level 3: First Pterodactyl
Level 4: Fish
Level 5: Waterfall 
Level 6: Mammoth
Level 7: Second Pterodactyl
Level 8: Grey T-Rex
Level 9: Spikey
Level 10: Bone 
Level 11: Last T-Rex
Final Level: Red Devil + Blue Devil


General Notes: 

-boomerangs, bones, basic club attacks, and roll attacks deal 1HP per hit
-wheels and fire deal 3HP per hit (exception: against t-rex bosses ALL attacks deal 1HP per hit)
-each visible bar of health represents 4HP (exception: in level 4, each fish represents 1 health bar and a single wheel or fire hit kills)


First T-Rex:

-stand on the top level, right at the very edge closest to the boss. this lets you avoid the cavemen which the boss spits out without having to move, and it's also the easiest position to hit the boss from. 
-sometimes the boss will charge forward to the right side of the screen. if the boss dies in this position, you will lose several seconds to a much slower death animation. if you've got 1 hit left, wait until the boss is all the way back to the left side before dealing the killing blow. 
-to avoid losing time to the above scenario, drop down to the bottom level once the boss reaches 1 health bar. If you are standing on the ground right under the boss, it will never charge forward to the right side of the screen. this method of finishing the fight will cause you to get hit once or twice, but it guarantees you never have to wait for the boss to move back to the left side before killing it. on average over the course of many runs, using this strat saves you time, but if you like to roll the dice, the fastest possible time is to stay on top and just hope you get optimal RNG


Plant:

-immediately run all the way to the right side of the screen in order to stand behind the boss for the entire fight
-if you got the wheel drop in level 2, timing for your attacks isn't very important. just jump and spam wheels nonstop. 
-if you are using fire, it's important to time your attacks carefully to not lose time. attack too soon, and your fire will pass right  through the boss. I stare at the base of the plant (the "stem") and count 4 wiggles between every fire shot, with the stem moving forward and then backward again counting as 2 wiggles
-to get the instant first hit on the boss, wait until right when joe is frozen in place for second to spawn the boss, then hold up and spam attack. it will register your hit while joe is frozen and the hit will go through a split second later. I also use a visual cue to time this, just get used to the spot of the background joe is in front of when the freeze happens. check my run on the leaderboard for help on the visual cue


First Pterodactyl: 

-the one cycle is possible! example:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBVG_ugRaEY
-the great thing about the one cycle is that it removes all RNG from the fight. the boss's first pass across the screen is scripted. after that, its patterns are random. however the one cycle is very precise and difficult. 
-the most important thing, (and this goes for ALL non-T-Rex bosses), is to avoid letting your club hit the boss. sometimes you jump and attack upward, but your club hits the boss before the fire/wheel, and so you only get 1HP of damage instead of 3HP. big time waster.


Fish: 

-all that matters is making sure you hit every fish with a wheel. never the club. NEVER ROLL. 
-if you hit a fish with anything other than the wheel or fire, it isn't a one hit kill. the fish drops back into the water and you have to wait another RNG cycle before it will come back up, and who knows how long that will take. it's imperative that you kill every fish with a single hit.
-it can be helpful to preemptively send a wheel rolling left or right along the ground even before fish jump. this can get you instant kills on some of them as they jump out of the water. just be careful not to send two rolling at once and miss, losing both wheels and ending up in a position where you have fish jumping but all you can attack with is your club


Waterfall: 

-there are two possible patterns for the first cycle. one where the boss stands straight up, and one where the boss leans forward all the way across the screen. the second one is slower but easier to secure a one cycle.
-the most reliable way to ensure you get a one cycle on the faster pattern is to stand directly underneath the head and attack straight up into its chin. if you throw wheels straight toward its face into its mouth, sometimes it will eat them and you won't get any damage in. 
-for the optimal kill, try to hold off on the lethal blow until the last possible second before the head submerges back under water. 
-failing the one cycle loses about 6 or 8 seconds. failing the second cycle loses about 30 more seconds. 


Mammoth: 

-stand all the way to the right for the fastest kill. yes, this means you will get hit a lot and probably die once. that's OK, that is the quickest strat. If you're concerned about getting a game over, you can stay to the left but realize you're going to probably lose 30+ seconds because the mammoth will dodge so many of your attacks. 
-once you reach the last phase of the fight (tusk and trunk both destroyed), move in front of the mammoth and do quick hops while spamming attacks into the hole where the trunk used to be. 
-if you're close to dying near the end of the fight (1 heart or less), consider taking an intentional death. reason being, if you die during the next level you will almost definitely lose more time than if you take the death during the mammoth fight.


Second Pterodactyl: 

-example: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/216459311
-it's imperative that you get the boss down to 3 or 4 bars of health during the first cycle. similar to the other pterodactyl fight, the first cycle is scripted, and the attacks are random after that. 
-occasionally it is actually worthwhile to use a roll attack against this boss, if you need to get from one side of him to the other and don't have a good opportunity for a wheel hit while transitioning 


Grey T-Rex: 

This is the only real "quick kill" trick we know of in the game. Normally since it's a T-Rex, each hit does 1HP, so you need 4 hits per health bar no matter your weapon. However, if your timing is juuuust right, you can jump up and spam wheels into its face as it's coming out of invincibility and it will register as a normal wheel hit, knocking off 3HP, so you can take out a health bar with only 2 hits instead of 4. You will want to find your own visual cue that works for you. Watch my leaderboard run in which I get the trick 8 times. The only way to get it down is to practice it over and over again. There are 9 opportunities to do this in the fight (10 health bars, but you can't do the trick on the first one). So each failed quick damage loses you a few seconds compared to an optimal time.

Other than that, just make sure you are standing close enough that you can throw straight up and hit the boss, but far enough away that you don't get hit when it lowers its head. This might mean you have to move back and forth a little bit each time the boss raises or lowers its head.


Spikey: 

Nothing to say except don't waste time. Make sure your wheel is already hitting the boss the instant it comes out of invincibility. 


Bone: 

-try to land a hit the instant the skull reconnects with the spine after going through its damage animation. for some reason there's a bug where you can take out two health bars in one cycle if you time this correctly
-standing underneath the boss is the easiest 
-if you get the pattern where the spine breaks apart into a bunch of pieces and they all fall from the sky (very rare on easy mode), move all the way to the left side of the screen and crouch in order to avoid taking damage (I know this works if you stand on the upper level but I'm not certain if it works while standing on the ground)


Last T-Rex: 

-using bones or boomerangs is recommended. this is because they do the same damage as wheels due to the special T-Rex HP rule and if you use the wheels, you run the risk of whiffing with both of them, thus losing time waiting on your wheels to roll off screen before you can throw more. Whiffing with bones or boomerangs loses less time.
-make sure you are holding both run buttons the entire fight. you will need to run back and forth a lot for an optimal kill. 
-mostly hang out underneath the boss, generally toward the right side of the screen. but you will need to move farther out left at times in order to keep getting continuous hits in 
-sometimes the boss's head exits the screen entirely off the top-right corner. when its head re-enters is always an optimal time to get in an easy clean hit 
-while not usually important, it's helpful to know that the cavemen the boss spits out will always drop health. occasionally useful if you're at 0 lives and low health


Red Devil : 

-has 80 HP
-while attacking the boss during the basic figure-8 pattern it flies in, only throw one wheel per jump. missing with both wheels is detrimental as it wastes a few seconds every time. 
-get very familiar with which points in the figure-8 pattern you can reach with a regular jump, and which points in the pattern require a super jump to hit. performing a super jump when you could get away with a regular jump will often cause you to take damage as well as waste time
-when the boss flies off the top of the screen, quickly toss one wheel in each direction (left and right). which side the boss comes from is random, but this guarantees one of them will hit. if you were in the process of tossing a wheel straight up when the boss exits the top, be aware of which way joe was facing when you threw it. that's the direction that wheel will roll once it lands. toss your second wheel in the opposite direction. 
-while the boss is in the lower right portion of the screen poking the heart to make rocks fall, you don't need to jump to attack it. just stand still on the ground, look up and throw wheels at a slow steady pace. if you spam, you'll probably miss two throws when the boss moves and then you just lost a few seconds. 
-when the boss is splitting into two copies of itself to make a mac clone, if you jump up in the middle of them and throw wheels upward, you can hit the real devil and the clone at the same time 


Blue Devil: 

-has 80 HP 

The pattern the boss repeats indefinitely is: 

teleport randomly -> fireball left -> fireball right
teleport randomly -> fireball left -> fireball right
move to top-center of screen and randomly do 1 of 3 possible attacks

for the "teleport randomly" part there are 6 possible locations the boss will appear. top-left, top-center, top-right, bottom-left, bottom-center, bottom-right. anywhere on the bottom is always best because you can get more hits in without needing to jump. 

when the boss moves to the top-center to do 1 of the 3 random attacks, stand about one or two joe-widths either left or right of center. this is to avoid one of the possible attacks where the boss shoots out fire rings in all directions. if it's one of the other two attacks, you'll have plenty of time to move out of the way.

when the boss starts flashing and sends a couple fire rings moving around the outer edges of the screen, it's invincible and there's nothing you can do. say goodbye to 7 or 8 seconds. you can hit the boss again as soon as the first of the two fire rings comes in contact with the boss after completing its trip around the screen. note that you can roll through the fire rings to avoid damage. this is probably safer than jumping over them. 

when the boss spits a bunch of fire out of its mouth, it's easy to dodge. whichever direction the fire goes, just move to the other side of the screen.

generally just make sure you don't let the club hit the boss (always the wheel!) and don't get spam-happy and miss with two wheels at the same time. other than that it just comes down to memorizing where to stand based on which pattern the boss is doing, and of course, hoping for 0 invincible rings. :)

bosshogre

Joe & Mac (SNES)

Super Nintendo

rotorstorm331

Shabazzle

Merriam

SaltSponge

USA / NTSC

Joe & Mac

Switch

Co op leaderboard?

Level Leaderboards?

Strat guide

What emulator is allowed?

LeHulk

ryntrussell

WeaponLord

PlatShadow

JagerEins

SpaceCoastGaming

Linkstxr