Meta Ridley (Tallon Overworld)
Meta Ridley is a boss which is fought in the Artifact Temple after collecting all twelve artifacts. It guards the entrance to Impact Crater.
Flying Phase
It is important to note that Ridley is weak to Boost Ball on the flying phase. Boost Ball does 50,000 damage per frame to Ridley, but it won't kill him. You can boost into him midair as he does a flyby (which will save about 10 seconds of in-game time), or you can boost into him just as he lands.
Midair Boost
- Start the fight off by doing a fully charged Plasma Beam shot. Make sure you wait a bit before firing, because if you fire too early Ridley will not get stunned.
- Do two more close to fully charged shots on the next three hits.
- As Ridley swoops down, boost into him. You get two chances at this with this setup.
Grounded Boost
If you miss both opportunities to get a midair boost, simply boost into him when he lands on the ground.
Flyby Skip
Just as Ridley is about to fly away, you have a 1-frame window to shoot him and skip his entire flying cycle. If you were too early, Ridley will be stunned midair and will start flying around. If you are late, he won't get stunned at all. If you get flyby skip, you will not be able to midair boost, but it still saves 10 seconds over a midair boost.
Without Charge Beam
Ground Phase
On the ground phase, you want to always have Power Beam equipped for rapid-fire Missiles. You should have at least 20 Missiles. It also helps if you move closer to Ridley as you are firing Missiles at him. Ridley can do an attack where he dashes at you, and it's pretty difficult to stun him as he's dashing. You want to try to aim at his mouth manually by holding R then fire when you think the timing is right. Make sure to dash away just in case it misses.
- Start off the fight by doing a charge shot to stun him. Shoot 5 Missiles at his chest.
- Stun him again with a charge shot, then him with 4 Missiles.
- Stun again, hit him with 3 Missiles.
This should end the first part of the ground phase. It is important to note that Ridley's attacks become faster on this phase, so getting a snipe is even harder.
- Stun him again with another charge shot, then shoot 5 uncharged Power Beam shots, then shoot 5 Missiles.
- Stun him again, and finish him off with 3 more Missiles. Swap to Plasma immediately after the last Missile for the Plasma door in Impact Crater.
You can dash off of one of the pillars if Ridley didn't break them. They will be invisible, but you can dash off one to your left after the cutscene to get into the warp.