Did anyone get MP3? (no spoilers)

[A Black Falcon]

You're horrible at dodging the incredibly slow and poorly aimed shots of the Space Pirates? How???

Jumping and moving around doesn't do a good job of dodging their shots... the guys in this section are either the (incredibly annoying) invisible ones with swords who keep hitting me because I miss half the time and they get in close and hit me and then I don't know where they are so I try to run or jump but then they probably hit me another time or two before I manage to hit them or the ones you need to use a specific weapon against and shoot at you, which, yes, hit me too. By the time I reached the Elite Pirate in this section of the Mines I was down to one healthbar (of my original eight)... and the Elite Pirate himself barely touched me. That battle at least I did well in. :)

Are you asking how to side dash? Well the important thing is to press the direction you want to dash BEFORE hitting jump (though you can get the timing down with just a little practice so you can pull it off quick). You NEED to use this ability. How have you gotten this far without it? I'm actually impressed in a way. Oh yes, you can only do this while locked onto an enemy. It's really very similar to Link's side jumping when locked onto enemies in his 3D games.

Remember how the only way I got past Thardus was by having a friend of mine (at school at the time, this was quite some time ago) beat the fight for me, because every time he charged me in ball form he hit me because I couldn't get out of the way? Yeah. Does that answer your question? :)

I try jumping up or up and over or something to dodge, but it doesn't work well at all... I'm sure I've done the sidedash sometime before, but certainly with no regularity.

(And then there's how I managed to beat Wind Waker without ever becoming competent with the "hit A to auto-attack the enemy" thing... but at least there you had alternatives, most of the time.)