Your palms will get sweaty, you will get angry, your BPM will raise, you will get used to hearing the title screen while Shantae tells you what game you are playing, and you will also get used to the file select music upon every failure (at least that music is awesome just like the rest of the game's OST). But once you finally beat him without getting hit, all you'll feel is euphoria.

But if you follow all these steps, you will overcome this horrifyingly difficult fight.

This is the easiest part of the Pirate Master's fight. He has a semibasic pattern of teleporting to your left, right or in the middle of the area.

The main thing you need to know is that this fight is not that difficult once you break his patterns down. First he teleports a couple of times (contact with him will damage you just like other enemies/bosses). Then he will teleport either to your left or your right and throw strange balls of energy at Shantae, the Cannon Blast is a spectacular way to avoid this attack.

After that, platforms made of bones will rise from the ground. He will randomly teleport onto the one on the left or the right. Use the Cannon to get up to these platforms with ease.
You absolutely do not want to be on the ground when he is up on one of the platforms because he will sling an array of energy balls at you from above. Stay on one of the platforms and shoot him with your gun. After he sends the barrage of energy at you, the Pirate Master will teleport to the platform opposite to the one he was standing on before, so it's important you move to the other platform using the Cannon and the Pirate Hat to make your way.

After this attack. The Pirate Master will stand still and allow you to hit him. There's a catch however.


Crosshairs will appear on randomly marked locations on the screen which will align an attack of laser beams. The damage is brutal (especially if you have not used any Heart Squids throughout the entire game to boost your health. Use the Cannon Blast in order to jump away from the lasers and slowly glide down with the Pirate Hat. After this, the pattern of teleporting, platforms and energy beams repeat.

YOU MUST COMPLETE PHASE 3 AND PHASE 4 TO GET THE ACHIEVEMENT!
I hope you haven't been relying on those Pirate Weapons of yours, because in the second, third and fourth phase, they get taken away from you.

The first attack was the most frustrating one for me, three cannonballs will bounce across the screen. As soon as the Pirate Master fires the cannonballs out of his shoulder, run to the right-hand side of the screen.

As soon as the first cannonball passes you by, run to the opposite side of the screen, the cannonballs will come back, just repeat the same step and it should work if you time it correctly.

The next attack consists of scimitars (pirate swords basically) appearing out of thin air and floating above you. It's rather self explanatory here. Just run under the blank space not occupied by one of the swords.


The next attack, guns will appear in a circle and fire at Shantae, this attack is a joke if you have a bubble shield. But if you don't have one, all it breaks down to is dodging the bullets, bullet-hell style.

After that attack, three bonemade structures will appear from the ground, however, ghostly apparitions of the Pirate Master's previous form will appear and lob the same energy spheres at the player. Get up to the platforms fast enough and destroy the apparitions so you can land multiple attacks on the Pirate Master, after this the phase repeats until you beat him.

This is where things start to get very, VERY difficult for people fighting the Pirate Master for the first time.

The cannonball phase will repeat, except there will be one extra cannonball adding up to 4 in total. This is the attack that ended my perfect streak many times. Don't let this intimidate you, just repeat the same step except you will have to move further due to there being one extra cannonball.

The scimitar phase will reoccur like the others, except the scimitars will randomly shuffle, try to stay under the area where the swords aren't covering. Backdash can be a lifesaver during this situation. Use it if you cannot move fast enough to the hole.

The spinning pistol phase is absolute bogus for first timers. The guns will fire normally (once again this is the biggest laughingstock in the Pirate Master's arsenal if you have a bubble-shield.) But the guns will fly at Shantae in an attempt to hurt her. This is very difficult to avoid. I have a strategy however.
Stand on the right hand corner and just a second before the guns fly at you, run to the opposite side of the screen and ditto. Jump and duck when necessary to avoid the flying flintlocks of foreordation.

The phase with the platforms is the only phase that has not changed at all. Much like the previous one, repeat until you beat him.

The bubble shield makes this phase a pure unadulterated joke, this phase is ridiculously easy if you know what you are doing. The first thing you will notice when you enter this phase is there will be a crosshair which is aimed at Shantae, if you press space, you fire a cannon which does not damage her. You have to stun the Pirate Master by hitting his floating head and then aiming the crosshair at him. Hit him four times and he is dead.

My strategy is to keep hitting the Pirate Master so he's completely immobilized and then pressing space while still spamming the attack key. However if you fail to do this, the Pirate Master's head will sporadically float around and eventually fire a blast which fires in all directions, remember what I said about the bubble shield? This is the moment you will want to use it just in case he escapes from your attacks and fires a counter attack (which is just a omnidirectional (in all directions) shot of dark magic, the bubble shield can block these projectiles thankfully.

Don't get frustrated if you get hit and have to restart the whole fight. Your anger will cause you to fail more and more.

Make sure you have a proper gaming environment or else the fight is going to be more difficult.

Make sure you have helpful items with you such as Pike Balls or Bubble Shields.

This is my personal recommendation of what your inventory should look like as soon as you reach him.
Notice my abundance of Super Pike Balls and Super Monster Milk. Those two items will work wonders during this fight.

All you gotta do is follow these steps until you can fully avoid all of the Pirate Master's attacks.

If you do manage to beat him without getting hit once. You're on your way on being a true pirate.















CREDITS:
Screenshots: Me
Album Icon: Unknown
Shantae Render: A fellow Shantae fan, https://firemaster92.deviantart.com