Rayman 2 Damageless safe strats

[ChameleonScales]

Hi,
This is my first post on this forum. I hope I'm not making a duplicate but I did a search and nothing came up, at least not as a dedicated thread.

The goal of this thread is to list, describe, demonstrate or ask about safe damageless strategies for tricky parts of Rayman 2 (TGE for me) .
They don't have to be the fastest. If a slower one is easier to perform than a faster one it's also worth mentioning.

For example, the spider in Canopy can be easily taken care of by going in the top tunnel and lowering yourself in the chasm's first spider web until the spider jumps in it and gets stuck, like this:


I will probably edit this post to add a few more, but right now I do have a question myself:
Can we reliably avoid the Ninja Henchman squishing or hooking Rayman in Prison Ship 2 or does he sometimes randomly jump straight on him and there's nothing we can do about it? What would you say is the safest strat to beat him?

[dr_st]

Neat strategy. I never realized that the spider can climb out the pit on the far side, but not on the near side.

[Hugo]

I love this thread!

Iirc the spider will climb back out of the hole if you cross to the other side too quickly. Edit: Maybe it's about making sure you go low enough in the hole? I might have trapped it in the past but it's good to know this is a reliable method. Using the Rayman font and dialogue makes the video so cute!

I am also interested in Ninja Henchman mini-boss in Pirate Ship 2. With his flamethrower and fast, aggressive attacks, this guy is on a whole different level to the previous Ninja Henchmen. I felt I couldn't develop a strategy in that awkward location he appears in, but once you spawn him it's probably impossible to reach the high ground without taking damage. I suspect a little cheesery may be involved, such as taking a specific position that just so happens to make it awkward for him and easy for you.

It would take a bit of experimenting to find such a position, but this gentleman has done a complete damageless run:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxKHPVIzotk

I assume his positioning at the edge is intended to keep the camera comfortably behind him, and he seems prepared for exactly where the Ninja will appear based on his position. It looks as though some attacks hit him, but apparently it's a "Han vs Greedo" thing where the good guy shot first. I hope you will keep making videos because the explanations would be helpful and the dialogue is so fun

[Master]

I can't say it's a consistent or valid strategy, but my approach when it comes to that fight is usually circle around like a panicky idiot and just spam the shoot button. The hope is that by moving around Ninja Henchman can't squish me, and having a mass of shots rebounding all over the place means it's likely to take a hit before it can engage its flamethrower.

[ChameleonScales]

Thanks for your feedback!

After experimenting it's become clear that this henchman has a set of predefined locations to land on, which are then randomly picked based on a radius around your current location. Meaning, 1: you can't predict with certainty where he will land because there's RNG involved and 2: if you find a spot where he never lands and stay on it, he will never squish or hook you.

The next problem is to find a spot where you don't have to look in 360° to fire at him, so you can let Rayman aim by himself using strafe input. There is an angle threshold beyond which strafe will no longer make Rayman turn (although I'm not sure it's as clear as say 90° to your current orientation, it may be relative to the world grid, idk and I don't have the software to know). The game devs knew you may want to find a corner in order to minimize your aiming range, so they placed a landing location for the henchman very close to almost every corner and enclosed space, except a few in the control room at the top. However, getting back there without taking damage doesn't seem very reliable.

The best spot I found so far is this one, facing in this direction every time I wait for the henchman to land:

Note that I'm not facing perpendicular to the platform's edge. I first tried doing that and strafe input failed when the henchman landed on the left side. This orientation turned a bit to the left is more reliable.

Then there is the issue of arriving at that location without taking damage. That one is easy. Before getting in the area whe he can spawn, you just jump and hover from this platform and as soon as he spawns you drop to the ground and go to the safe spot:

I may do a video tutorial but I'll wait to see if we find an even easier strat.

[The Jonster]

Ok, this I would be interested in learning about. I'd like tto be able to hold my gold fists rather than tossing most/all of them out because i keep getting hit by the ninja-pirate.

[dr_st]

Ok, this I would be interested in learning about. I'd like tto be able to hold my gold fists rather than tossing most/all of them out because i keep getting hit by the ninja-pirate.

Yeah, those gold fists are super-important in the final shell flight section.

[The Jonster]

Oh, most certainly they are! For the aesthetics!

[ChameleonScales]

And don't forget the Razorbeard fight! It's important to make a good "Fist impression"

Ok here's a quick recording of that strat. I forgot to mention that it's best to turn the red switch on before spawning the henchman, otherwise Rayman may lose his sense of priorities during the fight and aim at it instead of the pirate. I don't have an input visualizer installed right now but know that the quick reorienting and aiming when the henchman lands is all automated by strafe input. Only when he jumps up do I manually reorient Rayman (I have a keyboard so it's not precise). I do it without gold fists and without loading them to have enough hits to show how consistent it is, but of course you can load your fists as well, which also makes it easier to reorient Rayman precisely.

[PluMGMK]

Oh, most certainly they are! For the aesthetics!

I second this

For example, the spider in Canopy can be easily taken care of by going in the top tunnel and lowering yourself in the chasm's first spider web until the spider jumps in it and gets stuck,

… Is it bad that I've got this far in life without ever realizing that you can turn the camera and actually climb down that side of the pit?

[Hugo]

I'm really impressed by this video. I can see how you suspect there might be an easier way, as you have to react fast to the Ninja, but at the same time you have control of the fight by maintaining that position.

[ChameleonScales]

I swear it would look a lot easier if I showed my inputs. I tried a bunch of other spots and despite some requiring zero effort or skill, they all had some amount of risk of Rayman not aiming by himself and none seem as reliable as the one I showed. Also I just noticed that Phaeally picked the same spot in his perfect run (he took some risks at the start though):
https://youtu.be/Nm9twRwfhCE?t=8680