Palutena no Kagami (Kid Icarus) Ending Mystery or Myth

[Great Hierophant]

I was playing Palutena no Kagami today with the idea of saving the disk image at the last save point before beating the end.  FDS games tend to restart your game when you beat them, you cannot save near the end and beat the final boss and see the ending whenever you want.  If you want to fight the final boss again, you must go through the game again.  So I have been playing games with my FDSStick and saving the image back to my PC before defeating the final boss. 

With Palutena no Kagami, I originally thought that no matter how well I played, I would only get the second best ending because you must die to save your game.  In order to get the best ending, the received wisdom is that you cannot continue your game.  You can save the game and incur no ending penalty, but you must swap the disk. 

I played Palutena no Kagami and did pretty well.  I died and continued twice in 2-2, once because I did not earn the arrow and the second time because I fell into the ocean without a feather.  Then in 4-1 I committed suicide so I could save it.  By that time I had 5 endurance, 5 strength and the three weapon upgrades, (but not 999 hearts).  I figured I would get the second or third best ending, depending on whether you look on StrategyWiki or GameFAQs for the ending requirements.  To my amazement, I received the best ending! 

Has anyone else had this experience?

[P]

When I beat the game with max level in everything but had used a few continues, I think I got the next best ending (with the captain helmet). To makes things clear, you got the ending when Pit becomes a big strong warrior despite using continue on the Game Over screen?

Hearts and weapon upgrades doesn't seem to matter in Paluthena no Kagami, only Life, Arrow Power and continues. Here is what I concluded earlier (though I actually never have gotten all of the endings):
http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=383.msg150144#msg150144
Committing suicide to save is totally fine in Paluthena.

Ending pictures (the ending requirements here doesn't make sense though):
http://www.vgmuseum.com/end/fds/a/hipalutena.htm

Another question: Did you ever get microphone haggling to work?

[Great Hierophant]

I took my image saved on 4-1 and died and continued once.  When I defeated medusa, I got the guard captain ending.  That gives me three times dying and continuing in total.  So, either you get two freebies before you get the second best ending, or there was a bug in my image or FDSStick.  I would suggest that the first is true. 

Haggling works just fine, but you need a Famicom with a microphone.  Also, you have to hold down button A on the second controller when you shout or blow into the microphone.  In the NES version you hold down buttons A and B on the second controller.

[P]

So either the known ending formula is wrong or the Hero ending goes from 98 to 100 points, not 100 points.

My microphone works fine in other games I've tried it in (it's a bit unreliable though), but just not in this one. I have tried holding A-button but it won't help. I'm guessing Paluthena requires the microphone bit to stay more constantly high for a longer time than for example what Zelda do, so old microphones are no good with this game. I've been thinking of replacing the microphone with a new one but I'm not sure about the polarity.

[Great Hierophant]

Here is a short video showing a successful haggle I made :

https://youtu.be/aF_TynJ-c6w

Blow hard!

[P]

Hmm I might try it again sometime...