Super Monkey Ball 2: Master Extra Mode FAQ v1.0 Jeff Dimapasoc aka GForce9x gforce9x@aol.com September 24, 2002 This FAQ is to provide tips and strategies for the 10 floors in Challenge Mode's master extra level. ----------------------------- General Info and Symbol Guide ----------------------------- Throughout this guide you might see an asterik(*) on some of the floors' walkthroughs. These indicate a warp or extra hints/tips for making it to the goal. If you see an (s) symbol next to a floor, it means that you will need to pay close attention to your speed on the said floor. If you see a (t) symbol next to a floor, it means that timing will be crucial on the said floor. If you see a (c) symbol next to a floor, it means that fine control will be a huge factor on the said floor. ------------------------------------- How to Access the Master Extra Floors ------------------------------------- To access the master level floors, you must complete all 50 expert and all 10 expert extra floors (warps allowed), without using a single continue. Once you access the master floors, you can select it from the main menu instead of having to do expert all over again each time. To access the master extra floors, you must reach and complete master floor 10 without using any continues. I hope you've bought yourself a nice hefty bunch of extra balls from the gift menu. You'll need them to get this far. Let's get to it. ----------- Walkthrough ----------- 1 - VARIABLE WIDTH - Thin long sections of the floor alternate moving up and down like waves starting on the outside and going toward the middle and back. Hold up immediately from the start and go forward at full speed, staying straight heading toward the goal. The center part of the floor that you will be traveling on is not long enough to reach the goal, so once you get near the end, drop down to one of the side sections, keeping your speed at full, and then fall off to the inside and sail through the goal. 2 - STRIKER - (*Warps) The map will be a lot of help on this floor. The round springboard in the center of the platform will launch you across the gap to where the goals are. The best and safest way to do it is to try to position yourself close to the center of the striker, but a little over on the side of the goal platforms. This way, you'll launch higher and with less forward velocity, giving you more control on aiming for your landing as opposed to being launched at a low arc where it is harder to land accurately and easier to fly past the landing platforms. The red warp is on the small, highest platform. The green warp is on the middle, mid-sized platform, and the normal goal is on the large bottom platform. Just be careful to keep your control while you're bouncing around on your landing. The next two floors can be quite a pain, so unless you are trying to unlock all of the floors, I highly recommend aiming for the red warp. It's also good for your score if you're going for points ;) 3 - OOPARTS - (t) This floor is a little mean. It's one of those trail- and-error floors until you find out a method that works. Here's how I did it: Stay still until the clock hits around 57:50. Head forward at full speed to one of the outer edges. Angle yourself inward and hit the apparatus. The floor will be banked outward, so you'll need to keep yourself steered inward when you land. Now you can do one of two things. It's mainly dependent on where you land at. If you land on the very inside edge, you can immediately fall into the middle where a hole will be opening up to reveal the goal platform. If you land more to the center of the floor, keep your speed up and run to the other side, keeping yourself aimed toward the middle for when you drop off of the apparatus. Watch your speed as you're starting to fall off so that you don't overshoot the goal. 4 - PLANETS - (s,c) This floor is all about controlled drops. The first few drops are not as steep, but cover forward distance more quickly. The latter drops are much more steep than the first few, but they give you more time to adjust your forward movement for your landings. You can tackle this floor in a variety of ways. One option is to come to a stop on each platform. A quicker, more challenging (but in my opinion safer) method is to give yourself one bounce on each platform and move forward to the next one while you're in mid-air. The reason why I feel this one is safer is because you keep your momentum and get a little height to adjust your aim with. If you stop on each platform, you'll having to gain speed to reach the next platform and will probably end up falling down at an angle instead of a nearly vertical line. The angle of your drop is crucial because landing area of the platforms gets smaller as you get lower. If you choose to bounce from one platform to the next without stopping, you won't really need to hold forward very much other than to get a little extra distance. Use the mini-map at close or medium zoom (I recommend close zoom for the second half of platforms) to gauge your landing. The goal platform doesn't have much room to land on, not to mention the party ball there just waiting to ruin your day, so you'll want to have as close of a vertical drop as possible. Another way to try and enter the goal is to fall at an angle and aim yourself so that you bounce into the goal ribbon upon landing. This method is much less reliable though. *Warp: There is a red warp on the small planet behind the main goal. This one is very difficult to hit because you have almost no room to land on and safely control your bounce. You can also try aiming yourself so that you drop at an angle and land right at the goal ribbon and bounce through. 5 - SLICED CHEESE - (t) This relatively small floor consists of two circular discs that have holes punched into them to resemble Swiss cheese. You'll want to pass through the first one on the left side. Line yourself up with the outer row of holes and wait for a large one to come around and then run through it. This first disc moves slow enough where you can be pushing against it while waiting for a hole to come around and still be able to pass through safely, but it is still much easier to get a little running start. The second disc moves a bit faster. You'll want to pass through this one on the right side. You can use the outside holes or one of the holes to the row just inside the outer row. The outer row's holes are harder because they move faster, but easier since they are a tad larger. The inner holes don't move as fast, but are smaller. Either way, you'll still need to get a little running start to get though. Stand back as far as you can without the other disc blocking your view. Watch the left side of the disc for a large hole to come out of the floor and time yourself so that the hole will be passing in front of you as you reach the disc. For the either row, wait until the hole is just reaching the 11 o'clock position and then hold forward on the control stick. Pass through the hole and head to the goal. 6 - 8 SEESAWS - This floor isn't too bad compared to most of the others in the master level. It is very similar to LINEAR SEESAWS (Beg. Extra 9) in some respects. One thing you don't want to do on this one is go too fast. Give yourself a nice, steady pace as you travel down the seesaws. You'll want to give them a little time to raise the far end up so that you can safely move from one seesaw to the next. Choose a path to take. It doesn't really matter too much on which side of the seesaws you decide to cross on just as long as you keep your forward momentum. Personally, I like to go on the outer edge on the second one, inner on the third, and outer on the fourth. 7 - SYNCHRONIZED - (t) This one is like a cross between ICE HOCKEY (Exp. 50) and TRAIN WORM (Exp. Extra 10). The quickest and easiest way to get into the goal is to go for it right off the start. When the clock is around 59:10, hit the gas and go straight forward and hope you break the goal tape. I know it is very hard to get exact timing on floors like this. 59:10 isn't an exact figure. What I do is just eyeball the clock and the moment I see that 1 pop up, I press forward. If your reflexes are a bit slower, start moving a tiny bit sooner. If you happen to miss the gate, it'll probably be easier to just roll off and start again instead of trying to chase the goal down and hope it pops up in your path. *Warp: Same strategy as the normal goal, but start moving a little sooner, say around 59:40. Again, you may have to adjust your starting time depending on your reflexes. The numbers I'm giving are just rough estimates of when I start holding the stick forward. 8 - HELIX - (s,c) This floor is one long spiral to the bottom. Approach the start slowly. Drop down to the platform and inch your way up until you can see the track. You can use the mini-map too. Give yourself a little push of speed and try to land on the high side of the track, since it is the flattest. During the whole ride down, try to stay in the top two 'lanes'. The faster you go, the harder it will be to keep yourself from drifting or falling over. 35-40 mph is a good speed to use to get yourself down there in good time and still maintain good control while on the track. If you start to drift too far to the left, pick up your speed to correct your position and then bring it back down to whatever cruising speed you're comfortable with. If you want to try and get down there faster, bump your speed up to around 50 mph and use the third and fourth lanes as well. Just remember not to sway too much. When you reach the end, the goal will be flat, so slow down to find your dropping point and fall into the goal. *Warp: Notice that the warp gate is facing perpendicular to the normal gate. To do this one, keep your speed up as you're reaching the end of the track. Your speed will decide when to fall over the side. When you do fall over though, hug the left wall on your way down or else you may end up bouncing off of the party ball and falling down instead. 9 - DIZZY SYSTEM - This floor reminds me of the teacups at Disneyland. I haven't been able to come up with a consistent, reliable method for getting through this floor. I do recommend though at the start to head forward immediately at full speed and curve a bit to the right. When you are nearing the center of the floor, curve left to follow the goal. What makes this floor so tough is that the spinning circles tend to knock you up into the air and cause you to bounce around a lot. Try to stay back from the outside edges if you can and keep yourself facing toward the center of the circle while you are searching for the goal. Speed isn't something you need too much on this floor except for fine- tuning your direction. For the most part though, try to stay on the same platform that the goal is on and let the goal come to you. 10 - NINTENDO - (t,c) A nice little finish to the final floor of the game. You begin the floor being dropped on the bottom side of the Gamecube. If you want to get a view on how it rotates, pause the game and view stage. When you start, work your way forward toward the edge. When the Cube is about a third of the way through its turn, go over the edge to the side that will now be facing up. Go forward to the far edge and turn right, facing straight toward the corner. This next rotation is in my opinion the toughest for this floor. Stay on the left edge as the Cube starts turning and move forward as the next side is coming up. Be careful because you may bump into the handle and fall off. You'll need a lot of fine control to keep yourself hugged against the handle without falling off. The camera can get nasty here for you, depending on which side you're facing. Work your way alongside the handle on the outer edge to the other corner. The Cube will now rotate in the same direction as before and you'll find yourself on the other side of it. Move forward toward the corner and wait for the next rotation. Go over the top and you'll find yourself on the front side of the Gamecube. Position yourself against the top part of the ports (the controller side, not the memory card side) and turn left to face the top. The Gamecube will make one final turn. Be very careful to watch your speed as it rotates (explained below) so that you don't fall over the other side. You'll now be on top of the Gamecube. Move yourself to either the 'Open' or 'Reset' buttons so that the lid doesn't flip you off when it opens. Wait for the lid to open and then go inside to the goal. *Tips for making the rotations: The rotations can be tricky and are all about timing. There are about 4-4.5 seconds between each rotation. You don't want to go over the edge too soon or else you'll catch the next side when it is still too steep and fall over the back. You don't want to wait too long either or you won't make it over. Let the rotation of the cube give you half of your momentum and use the control stick to give yourself the rest. Start moving forward as the Gamecube is around 1/4 to 1/3 of its rotation. Your positioning doesn't matter except for the second rotation. Unless you go on the left side where the handle is, you will fall into the little pit and get stuck. The final rotation is the most dangerous as far as speed and timing are concerned because the whole surface is flat and smooth while the others have something you can use to slow yourself down with. ----------------------- Copyright/Contact Info. ----------------------- I am only allowing this FAQ to be hosted by GameFAQS. If you have any questions about this FAQ or its content, or if you notice any errors, feel free to write me at gforce9x@aol.com. Please be sure that the subject line of your e-mail is easily noticeable as being related to this FAQ. E-mail that is titled something like, "Hey GForce9x" or "Hey Jeff" will get deleted as it will look like a lot of the spam that I get. Also, please let me know if you see any other site besides www.gamefaqs.com hosting this FAQ. Happy Gaming This document Copyright 2002 Jeff Dimapasoc