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revamped m5 strat
'''Mission 5'''
'''Mission 5'''
There are so many ways to slip through the boundaries here that this is basically a freeform level. The path detailed here is believed to be the fastest, obtaining all three keys in the same life. There's no longer a difference between Dreamcast and GameCube times here, as there was on previously discovered paths.
Start this mission out just like you would the easy path on mission 3, keeping in mind the added enemies. Do not try to get out of bounds at the corner light; it doesn't help (you can easily see the room you need to aim for, but it's a bit too high to reach from here). Instead, drop down a level, punch out the hourglass, and dig into the mural on the right side of the next room. After you dig through the mural, you're in the room with the first key. On Dreamcast, you can just stand over the middle of the hourglass floor and do a Spiral Upper to pull the key out directly. On GameCube, you'll have to hit the hourglass, go left or right to stand on the platform that appears, punch out boxes, hit the next hourglass, and dig into the middle of the now-opened ground to get this key.
Start by running forward through the first two hourglass doors. When you reach the step up with the E-1000 guarding the ledge, jump up into it, and with the extra upward momentum that provides, turn around and glide back to the U-shaped ledge above the entrance to this room. There are two flaming mouth statues here; grab the wall to the side of, and near the top of, the right mouth relative to the camera at this point. By maneuvering with the joystick, you can get partially inside this statue, and after some effort you can trick Knuckles into thinking he can grab a ledge, and during the animation for that he conveniently forgets that there's a ceiling above...so you'll pass through the ceiling.
Now dive through the corner into free space again, and continue to the center room and follow the walls around to the underwater hallway. You don't need to rise all the way to the top this time. Stay under the walls of the underwater mirror of the Chao room, and swim until you're under the center of the lower alcove. The next key is inside a closed hourglass door, but you can shoot up through it to get back in bounds and collect the key. From here it's a short trip to the last key by heading out into the main room, going up, and diving down behind the chest in this room.
Now quickly gain control and glide to the right, and continue angling slightly right as the camera angle rotates. Eventually you'll see the secret room with key 1 in it (there's an inside-out beetle decoration on the wall that's used to create the "red nose" on one of the Eggman symbols inside). No, you aren't going to try to get inside this room...instead, you want to scrape the ''underside'' of it, such that you're still high enough to grab the key, ans so that you don't have to use a Spiral Upper or face a version disadvantage, and you don't have to go through the effort of quickly squeezing through the seams at the corners of the hourglass door. Be warned, there are box-shaped protrusions on the underside of the floor, and if you hit one of those you'll be stuck back in-bounds, so instead you want to squeeze in between two of these protrusions (which only leave a single box-width of space between them). If you aimed between them properly, you continued your line after passing through that gap, and you didn't dive too far down, this will get you key 1, preferably under 14 seconds. Once you have it, turn around immediately without breaking glide.
Record video: [http://soniccenter.org/videos/2-4-12-5-3689.wmv 0:36.89 by SadisticMystic]
At this point you're still high enough that you can glide back into the hallway between the red room and the green room. You don't want this, so once you get the camera behind you once again, veer left o dodge it. You should pass under a curved hallway with metal grating on the floor, and for now your goal is to glide straight to the underwater room containing the final two keys. However, if you cut that sharply, even a straight line will result in a fall out before you can get there, every time. You're going to have to try a little trick: Release glide momentarily, and press A as soon as doing so will allow you to start gliding again. This allows you to cover horizontal distance without losing as much height as simple gliding would! Note that repeatedly tapping A this way isn't effective; after breaking each glide you need to wait to get back up to speed before you can get any use out of this technique again. If your aim is good, using this break-glide technique at least twice should allow you to get under the target room, and therefore underwater and naturally buoyant, before you would cross the kill plane at the bottom and die.
However, you don't just want to resurface in the main room straightaway, as that forces you into a comparatively arduous journey to get key 3. Instead, keep swimming under the floor until you get to the hourglass door where key 3 is embedded, and rise up into it! Now you could resurface to the main room, but there's a slightly faster way. Once you get key 3, you're stuck inside the hourglass door, and will remain that way as long as you don't press A or B. Take advantage of this state by heading to the back corner of the hourglass door, where you can successfully be ejected back out of bounds. Swerve around the second small alcove that's above and in front of you, and once you're past it, you can resurface, hopefully into key 2 for the victory.
Record video: [http://soniccenter.org/videos/2-4-12-5-3247.avi 0:32.47 by SadisticMystic]
[[Category:SA2 Strats]]
[[Category:SA2 Strats]]