Well now, I never thought I'd care enough to make this fight happen with no damage but here it is. Since all the previous strategies I'd come up with required a large amount of luck to pull off no damage with, I never cared to spend the time replaying it over and over again until I got a perfect fight. (Also, I just don't like this battle; I was willing to spend over six hours on Ridley because it was a fun fight and entirely skill-based but this one is rather boring.) Some recent comments on my other two Phantoon videos, though, got me thinking about different strategies for the fight. Thus, after a few hours of pondering, testing, and practice, I ended up with this video.
The main difference between this video and my previous one is how I deal with Phantoon instantly appearing after being invisible. There's no way to predict where Phantoon will appear, which means no way to avoid it if it happens to appear on top of you. This was the big sticking point that kept me from pulling off no damage before.
Now, the main tip I've seen for avoiding Phantoon's instant appearances is to keep moving. This advice is worthless, however, because without being able to predict where Phantoon will appear it's just as likely you'll run into Phantoon appearing in front of you as you are to avoid Phantoon appearing where you moved from. I'm not sure why people think this is a good idea because I've tried it and the number of hits and dodges were pretty much the same as standing motionless.
A tip that actually makes sense, on the other hand, is to minimize the area where you can be hit by making yourself smaller – you can do this by rolling into a ball. Assuming Phantoon's appearance location is completely random, taking up one third the space while morphed into a ball would result in getting hit a third as often. I tested this idea and found that it works very well; while morphed into a ball, only very, very rarely did Phantoon appear low enough in the room to hit me.
So, having found a viable strategy, I gained the motivation to sit and practice enough to pull off a no damage fight. There was still some luck involved, since there are still situations where Phantoon can trap you with too many flames to avoid, but little enough to be tolerable.
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Phantoon beaten without taking damage. Played in real time on Snes9x v1.43+.
Phantoon is the hardest boss in the game to avoid damage on due to the amount of luck required to avoid some of its attacks. The strategy shown in this video minimizes your chances of getting trapped by unavoidable hits but it's still not entirely consistent.
Phantoon's normal attack pattern is fairly simple: It will drop flames for a bit while visible, then open its eye -- during which time it's vulnerable to attack -- while sending out a ring of flames around itself. After that, Phantoon will be invisible while dropping flames until it appears with its eye open, along with a line of flames that will drop from the ceiling. Phantoon will continue appearing with lines of flames until it's damaged, at which point its attacks will reset to the start of the pattern.
Now, the first thing you need to know is that the flames Phantoon drops from its closed eye won't hurt you until they've touched the ground or a wall. And the second thing you need to know is that you can use the Charge Beam to pass through all its flames unharmed. Simply charge up a beam shot and spin jump through them. This will save you from vast amounts of damage.
It's also important to know how Phantoon will react to certain attacks. If you hit it with a super missile it will cause Phantoon to appear at the top of the room and send eight waves of flames down at you, but these are easy to avoid by using the Charge Beam. If you hit Phantoon with a charged Ice/Wave/Spazer Beam shot, it will immediately disappear. If you hit Phantoon with a charged beam shot with only one or two of the other beams equipped, or with a missile, Phantoon will fly around the room for a bit, during which time it will be vulnerable to attack but will also damage you if it runs into you. Afterwards, Phantoon will always restart its attacks from the beginning of the pattern.
