About the first door, I know nothing could be done, so that's no problem.
Ok, that's good. The first door was the one I was referring to having problems with, not the second one.
I've made a watchlist for you.
Right click -> save as
It lists what I am fairly certain are the Hit Point values for the eight possible enemies that can exist at any point in time. I didn't test it too thoroughly, since my gimpy wrist doesn't agree with SoR type games. Damn ninjas.
That's pretty neat, thanks. I tested it some as well and it does seem like they're representing enemy hitpoints (although when I tested it on Shiva one of the values stayed at 28 for some reason). I'm not sure if this would help with determining when the robots explode, though.
1) Which robots explode is predetermined and the same robots explode every game.
2) The robots don't start to explode unless they are close to you.
I have a feeling you're right on both accounts.
I think the doors cannot be hit directly, it takes some time. Which door did you choose?
The door that leads to the "normal" route.
Edit: Through the second set, and here's a
savestate at the beginning of Stage 5. Unfortunately, Zan breaks the second door no matter what. Even if you do his triple charge at the bottom of the screen (his triple charge has the most distance), he still breaks it.
Also, for the first door, Blaze has to be at that exact spot because the game cuts Zan's input while Blaze moves to that spot, and you can't break the door before that.