Blaster Master (NES) longplay part 2

Two halfway runs of the game... I discovered a few ways to get stuck inside a wall and have to reset!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaster...)
Originally broadcast at twitch.tv:
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[@techmaester]

If you enable the level select with a rom editor, you can choose area 2 to begin the game. Defeat the boss, do area 3, and enter area 1. Enter the room, jump, fire to break a block in the wall guarded by the green monster, and press right. You may fall on top of him and take damage, so half your health is recommended to survive escape. Why? Without hyper, you cannot damage him, so best to take the hit just after he fired (away from you). You only need to defeat the final bosses to finish the game, so everything before that is meaningless. You can’t do that with Castlevania, though-playing the levels out of order will cause checksum errors, and the game will soft-lock. Technical trivia, thought you’d find interesting.

[@Sakanakao2]

I noticed when experimenting later, the missiles only damage that guardian face AFTER you get the stage 1 boss' upgrade. That was kind of interesting to realize, that the upgrade applies to the missiles as well somehow. I thought because I saw missiles damaging it that maybe I could defeat it without doing the first boss, but it doesn't work because of this.