Any helpful tips for the Black Belt Champion trophy?

[macross0145]

To the players’ that got this trophy, would you mind sharing some helpful tips?  This is one is a tough one to beat for me.  I usually get to lv 5/6 (if lucky, and other times it’s lv 4 that quickly destroys my space) and the cpu just hammers my space in like 3 moves.  One time I made it to lv 7, but had no luck as was battling back and forth with the cpu and I lost.  

 

I watched various youtubes, read few threads, but they really don’t explain much.  All I got from one comment was you need to do 3x3 boxes and higher to move into the cpu space and that causes the cpu to rush/mess up.  The rest seems to say go faster or “slowly” work on clearing your space to which none helped me get far.  Youtube vids just shows insane drop speeds as one completed all 10 lvls in ~20+ minutes.  At this point I’m flustered.  Any help would be great.

 

 

[DrBloodmoney]

Best advice I can give is, don’t just restart after a failure - keep going to the end, no matter how many lives you use, to practice all levels equally.

 

The different stages are designed to play as if they are 10 different opponents, not escalating levels of difficulty of the same opponent.

 

As such, some are best dealt with with raw speed, but some by careful play, some by absorbing an initial barrage, then outlasting them etc…

… and if you keep resetting when you fail , you will end up getting so good at beating the “early guys” that you get stuck in one style of play, and won’t be able to switch it up to deal with the later ones.

 

 

Best advice is, learn what each opponent is doing to you, and how they play, so you can effectively out-manoeuvre or out-perform them.

When you lose, try to figure out exactly how they beat you, and remember it for next time, because that same stage will probably try to beat you that same way every time.

 

You can beat everyone by simply being lightning fast (and you do have to be pretty damned fast regardless)… but it’s better to learn what they are strong and weak against, and exploit it!

Edited July 31, 2023 by DrBloodmoney

[macross0145]

@DrBloodmoney,

Thanks for replying.  I did pass the vs cpu by continuing (to obtain the skins/tracks).  I guess it’s like chess, but at an insane speed in you meaning the cou plays differently.  I did notice the 1st lvl got better and didn’t allow me to beat them in 40 secs; became a 2min process.  Guess the cpu learning my method.  Ok, i’ll give that a shot by playing all the way through continuing when I loose.  Hopefully I can finish this game.

 

I recall the India song and the Fortune Cookie level game me issues in corning me early on.  So the mice/cheese level (lv 4) is what usually ruins my run with its blitz attack.

[DrBloodmoney]

9 minutes ago, macross0145 said:

@DrBloodmoney,

Thanks for replying.  I did pass the vs cpu by continuing (to obtain the skins/tracks).  I guess it’s like chess, but at an insane speed in you meaning the cou plays differently.  I did notice the 1st lvl got better and didn’t allow me to beat them in 40 secs; became a 2min process.  Guess the cpu learning my method.  Ok, i’ll give that a shot by playing all the way through continuing when I loose.  Hopefully I can finish this game.

 

I recall the India song and the Fortune Cookie level game me issues in corning me early on.  So the mice/cheese level (lv 4) is what usually ruins my run with its blitz attack.

It does take a combination of some tactics, some speed, and definitely some good luck - I was playing a few attempts in the evening as my routine for like 10 months before I started even having any realistic chances at beating the whole thing in one life!

[vanillamoose]

I remember this trophy being one of the hardest! What I would say is to work on speed and accuracy. Being fast won’t mean much if you’re not clearing tiles.
 

Also each stage has a different rhythm to it, so I agree with @DrBloodmoney, keep playing through all of the stages, with the use of continues, to get a better feel for each boss’s stage.

 

Most importantly, if a couple of hours have gone by and you still haven’t cleared the boss mode with no continues, take a break! Sometimes stepping away for a while, even just an hour, does wonders for our reflexes. Good luck and hang in there!

[macross0145]

@vanillamoose,

Thanks.  Yah, I played almost like 3 hrs straight each time since this is my last trophy for the platinum.  I thought 2 laps on endless was tough enough, but I forgot how annoying the vs cpu was.  Almost gave up as I feel the cpu learning my methods or random chaos (like with my PS3 Capcom Arcade Cabinet as the annoying Gunsmoke game random bullet deaths keeping me from 100%).  Do appreciate the advice.  Will try in a bit.

[Drag-On-Detritus]

I've done this three times now & I believe it's heavily dependant on random factors which is why various strats work some of the time but not others. There's definitely a 'feel' to get for it as with each stack this trophy added less & less play time. I almost did it first try on the most recent stack but jumped the gun on lvl 10 & failed. I wasn't mad at all when that happened because I knew it would come eventually. 

 

Sometimes the AI just decides it's over the game & gives up. Sometimes most of the AI gives up, & this is where you get a successful run. I've cleared lvl 4 in 15 seconds multiple times. Cleared lvl 7 in under 30 once. The Alien barely took more than a minute. IMO a 20 minute run of this is a bit long & I would have restarted if multiple AI took longer than 2 & a half minutes because when the opponents are displaying that level of belligerence you can play the best you ever have & it won't count for shit. I did find out the hard way that being too aggressive against the Alien is a shit way of doing things due to the timeline being so slow.

 

If any of the above looks like boasting I can assure you it's not. All 3 successful runs had no consistent attributes outside of playing carefully at a very deliberate pace (sometimes leaving a clear or two for the next timeline rather than racking up a large clear) and waiting for the AI to decide I get to win. Most of the time I was playing the flip phone/tate version of Lumines in the corner & just had to survive. The game does have a very good pause feature that lets you see what blocks you've got & plan ahead a bit & while this doesn't guarantee victory it's very helpful to use it when you need to. (and extra annoying when spending the extra time doing that only to still loose). If there's one real tip in here it's to use the pause feature to give yourself an advantage.

 

The only other thing I did to help myself is use a little bit of cannabis to get in the zone which removed any need to think about it at all & made everything entirely intuitive. This also took the edge off failures & helped me get a feel for when to give up on a run that was never going to work. It's very much a YMMV thing but for whom this is practical I recommend Apples & Bananas or a similar high-terpine Sativa dominant strain.