Routes and strategies for Meteor Herd's random emerald hunting missions. I know I did five runs for Mad Space, but Meteor Herd's a bit shorter on average, so I went for six... I guess I just wanted to show as many emerald locations as I could in 5-6 minutes.
I restarted just before completing each run except for the last run, just so I wouldn't waste video time with the stage clear screens. Of course, my restart times are a little faster than what I'd get if I'd actually completed the level.
Run 1 - 0:56.20 (restart)
There are a lot of hint monitors on ground level, but none that are very near the start. Since the first emerald piece is more likely to be above ground level than at ground level, my first hint monitor is the one that's sort of on the way to the higher areas.
Climbing the platforms between the central tower and the ARK is time consuming, especially if you have to get past the weight elevator (it requires you to break the cage with the missile, and then hit the switch). So it's almost always better to just use the rocket. I forgot about this for a few seconds on the way to piece 2.
For piece 3, what I do is locate the yellow bulldozer that's near the border of gray and yellow colored ground.
Run 2 - 1:06.27 (restart)
For piece 2, "On top of the steel drilling tower": there are three drilling towers in the level. This piece can be on top of two of them: the one on the gray ground near 0-1, or the one on the yellow ground near 0-5 (never the one on the red ground near 0-4, since the developers didn't want to put anything close to the level start).
There's two things you can do here: (1) Get close enough to the top of one tower until the radar should have turned green. If the radar does turn green, land on the tower and collect the piece; if it doesn't turn green, turn around and head for the other tower. (2) Find a second hint monitor: the hint will be either "Suspended above the YELLOW ground." or "Suspended above the GRAY ground you see below.", and this will tell you which tower to go to. Here, I went for option 1. It looks like I lost about 8 seconds going to the wrong tower first, which is a 50/50 chance; that's an average of 4 seconds lost with option 1. Option 2 requires you to find another hint monitor and then read it, which usually takes more than 4 seconds for me; so I think option 1 is better by just a little bit.
It's kind of annoying to have to go back up to the ARK for piece 3 after going to the bottom of the level for piece 2. For this piece, you can just fall on the meteorite after dropping off the rocket, and you'll break it without having to use Drill Claw.
Run 3 - 1:09.80 (restart)
There's four artificial chaos enemies in this level. Two are between the central tower and the ARK; two are in the balconies up in the ARK. "water drops" refers to one of the two round artificial chaos. "Evil water drops" is the one near the cluster of small meteorites; "Dangerous water drops" is the one up at the ARK, on the first balcony on the right. The other two artificial chaos, which are attached to platforms, are both referred to as "Dangerous liquid".
You'll often get piece 1 somewhere among the higher floating platforms, and then piece 2 up at the ARK, like in this run. What I usually do in this situation is take the spring from the side of a nearby square stone platform, which springs you to the rocket that points at the ARK. I was going to do that here, but then realized it seemed a bit faster to just climb the large storage container and jump up to the ARK rocket.
Piece 3 was floating next to one of the four corner beams. I checked six of them... those things are hard to see sometimes. You'll save some time if you happen to remember which corner beam the piece is next to, since it's always the same one.
Run 4 - 0:56.05 (restart)
"Upper the floating tank!" can be in either of two floating storage tanks: (1) the tank near the cluster of small meteorites (like in this run), or (2) the tank on a platform right under you after using the rocket from the central tower. To break the tank, either use Spiral Upper like I do here, or use a triple punch combo (the third punch is a jumping punch).
"Try digging while watching the moon" can be in either of three platforms: this six-circle platform (has the rocket to the ARK), the third-lowest six-circle platform (has floating boxes and a hint monitor), or the lowest six-circle platform (has non-floating boxes and a spring). "Try digging while watching the stars" can be found in the same platforms; you dig while facing the star symbol instead of the moon symbol. For most of these locations, you can dig halfway between the top and bottom sides of the platform, like this.
Run 5 - 0:44.44 (restart)
"Twin stars" can be in either of the two star symbols on the ground. This was a particularly nice set of locations.
Run 6 - 0:45.10 (complete)
Total - 5:37.86
Average - 0:56.31
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whats the record for this stage?
sonichaven 3 months ago
@sonichaven Not sure if it's the record (there isn't really a TSC ranking for this, though a few people indicate no deaths in their stat comments), but I seem to have gotten a 37.60 in mission 4 a while ago. My best in recent attempts is 41.34, with "On something strong", "Next to a rocket aimed at the ARK", and "Floating around the moon".
yoshifan28 3 months ago
It's your main man knuckles
And we're at meteor herd
You ready to go into space?
Help me get the emeralds~
At least this is one of the better Knuckles tracks. I can't imagine how you handle practicing his stages D:
GarlyleWilds 3 months ago
@GarlyleWilds I'm actually kind of neutral on Knuckles's tracks, since at least they're some of the quieter tracks in the game. IMO, Sonic Heroes sound got old a lot faster (voices).
yoshifan28 3 months ago
It's always so nostalgic to watch your vids :P
All the other speedrunners do the new games, so watching yours can be very relaxing sometimes :D.
Also quite like the music on this stage. Ahh man, makes me turn on my wii and play SA2B :D. Still haven't gotten all A, it's pretty hard D:
poehalcho 3 months ago
@poehalcho I guess I'm sticking with what I know, at least for now. I feel like I've been missing out on a lot of exciting new games, though, so that may change sometime next year.
And yeah, it's been a while, but some of those A ranks took some doing the first time around... there's a lot of missions too.
yoshifan28 3 months ago