--- Mega Man 1 FAQ ---
--- by UltimaterializerX <
[email protected]> ---
--- Version 1.5, 2/8/2005 ---
+++++++++++++++++++
+ Version History +
+++++++++++++++++++
Version 1.5 - I have recently switched to gmail, and as a result am updating
my contact information on my guides. CJayC also went and
renumbered the game boards on GameFAQs, so I'm updating the
links at the bottom as well.
Version 1.4 - Fixed some more minor errors, renamed the two forms of Wily,
and cleaned up the Boss Flow Chart.
Version 1.3 - Alphabetized the Item List and fixed some more minor errors.
Version 1.2 - Added Plasma Beam to the Weapon List and fixed some other minor
errors.
Version 1.1 - Thanks to arkenaga pointing out how stupid I am, I noticed that
some of the links I had in the Contact Information section were
outdated. But not anymore =)
Version 1.0 - This is the first version of the guide, so there will obviously
be typos and errors and such. I will limit them with a spell
checker of course, but not everything can be perfect. If you see
anything that is glaringly wrong and feel the need to contact me
about it, be my guest. I'm always open to people pointing out my
mistakes in anything I write.
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+ Table of Contents +
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I. Introduction
II. Weapon List
III. Enemy List
IV. Item List
V. Walkthrough
i. Bomb Man
ii. Guts Man
iii. Cut Man
iv. Elec Man
v. Ice Man
vi. Fire Man
vii. Dr. Wily Stage 1
viii. Dr. Wily Stage 2
ix. Dr. Wily Stage 3
x. Dr. Wily Stage 4
VI. Boss Flow Chart
VII. Credits/Special Thanks
VIII. Disclaimer/Contact Information
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+ I. Introduction +
+++++++++++++++++++
Just as a quick note, this guide is being written for the PS2 Mega Man
Anniversary Collection version of Mega Man 1. I'm not entirely sure whether
or not there are any major differences between the MMAC version and the NES
versions of the game, but it's something worth noting, especially if you
see me referring to buttons on the Playstation controller instead of the
NES controller.
This guide is also not written in layman's terms. I trust that the people
reading this don't need to be told what every button on the controller does,
how to climb a ladder, or how to switch weapons =)
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+ II. Weapon List +
+++++++++++++++++++
The following is a list of all the weapons available to Mega Man in the
game, in the order with which you should get them in. The list is quite
short, considering a ton of things such as Beat and Rush had yet to
exist, and Mega Man himself will only get weapons from six different
robot masters as opposed to the eight that most people are used to.
There is also the Magnet Beam that is found on the other side of a
Super Arm Block in Elec Man's stage. You _must_ get the Magnet Beam in
order to beat the game. No exceptions.
Plasma Beam --- Your default weapon. Some people call it the Arm Cannon,
some people call it Plasma Beam; personally, it doesn't matter what you
call the thing. As long as you're using it to kill enemies, call it
Dick Tracy for all I care. One thing of note is that in the first three
Mega Man titles, the Mega Buster had yet to exist. This means that you
can't charge the weapon yet, but if you're playing MMAC, you have a
rapid fire button to offset this.
Hyper Bomb --- You receive the Hyper Bomb after taking down the absolute
joke that is Bomb Man. In the battle against Bomb Man, you'll notice that
Bomb Man periodically fires gigantic bombs at you that are easy as
anything to avoid simply because there is such a long pause between
deployment and detonation. When you receive the weapon, you'll have the
exact same problem. If you're lucky enough to encounter an enemy dumb
enough to stand still, then by all means, have fun using Hyper Bombs to
kill it. Otherwise, the weapon has little practical use throughout the
game.
Super Arm --- The Super Arm has but one use, and one use only: to allow
Mega Man to pick up and throw Super Arm Blocks. The Super Arm itself is
not a stand-alone weapon, but if there is a Super Arm Block in the vicinity,
then Mega Man will be able to pick it up, launch it forward, and see the
block split apart en route to obliterating the ever-loving hell out of any
enemies in its way. Seems fun, but without Super Arm Blocks, it's useless.
You receive this weapon after taking down Guts Man.
Rolling Cutter --- Those who play Mega Man 2 before Mega Man 1 will
recognize this weapon as the precursor to the Quick Boomerang. In essence,
the Rolling Cutter is a bigger, slower version of Mega Man 2's Quick
Boomerang. It even has the exact same trajectory. When you fire the weapon,
it fires out in an arc and returns to Mega Man in boomerang fashion. It
seems useless, but the Rolling Cutter is one of the better weapons in the
game due to its ability to kill enemies that lie in odd places. This
weapon is earned after taking down Cuts Man.
Magnet Beam --- The Magnet Beam is a requirement for beating the game,
even if getting the item itself isn't obvious. In Elec Man's stage, you'll
see the Magnet Beam on the opposite side of a Super Arm Block. You know
what to do. The Magnet Beam itself creates a platform for Mega Man in
midair, and the use for such an item is infinite after getting used to
it. With a little practice, you can easily create stairways to climb to
heights previously unattainable. There is a section within one of Dr.
Wily's stages that is flat-out impossible to complete without the Magnet
Beam, so master the item's use early. It also comes in handy during the
glitch-filled hell that is Ice Man's stage.
Thunder Beam --- After taking down Elec Man in one of the game's hardest
battles, you are justly rewarded with one of the single best weapons ever
made. The Thunder Beam fires in three directions --- straight ahead,
straight up, and straight down --- and does an insane amount of damage to
most of the enemies in the game. The Thunder Beam shot that fires straight
ahead fires in a very wide path, and serves as a nuclear laser that can
and will clear virtually any path of enemies. As for the shots that fire
up and down, they make for a nice and easy way to dispatch of most enemies
in odd places, and in the event that the Thunder Beam can't reach an enemy,
you always have the Rolling Cutter. With those two weapons in hand, the
game becomes considerably easier.
Ice Slasher --- The Ice Slasher is the simplest weapon in the entire game.
You receive it after defeating Ice Man, and when fired, a lone icicle fires
straight ahead. That's it. The Ice Slasher's main purpose isn't for killing
enemies, but for freezing Fire Columns.
Fire Storm --- At first glance, the Fire Storm seems about as useful as the
Ice Slasher. But a second look reveals that the Fire Storm is a wonderful
weapon to use in crowded areas. Not only does Mega Man shoot a blast of fire
straight ahead, but he is also wrapped in a shield of fire that wards off
most enemies. It doesn't make Mega Man completely invincible, but most
enemies die simply from getting too close to Mega Man, and those that happen
to get through the shield to hurt Mega Man will likely die afterwards, anyway.
The Fire Storm is the perfect weapon to use when jumping across pits that are
infested with enemies.
+++++++++++++++++++
+ III. Enemy List +
+++++++++++++++++++
No, not a listing of the robot masters. The following is a list of the
various peons that exist through the levels of the game. Most are easy to
take down and are of little threat, but this doesn't mean that they aren't
fun to mow down regardless.
Blader --- An absolute pain in the ass, plain and simple. They only
take one hit from the Plasma Beam to kill, but their pattern is so erratic
that they're annoying as hell to take down. They start off nice enough,
but when they get close to Mega Man, they take a bird dive right at him.
To kill them the easiest, use the Fire Storm. If you don't have it, then
use the Thunder Beam. The Thunder Beam's sheer width should be enough. If
you're hell bent on using the Plasma Beam, then run to the left just as
the Flying Skull begins its dive, then turn to the right and quickly kill
it. Not that this is possible over a bottomless pit, of course.
Bullet Bill --- One of two enemies in the game that comes at you infinitely
until you move forward, with the Penguin being the other. Both enemies are
essentially the exact same thing, only the Bullet Bill explodes upon death.
The blast radius is exactly the same as that of a Hyper Bomb; in other words,
not that much. Bullet Bills make for good regeneration enemies if you're low
on health or weapon energy. Just stand still, kill them as they come at you
with their one static pattern, and grab whatever they drop.
Crazy Razy --- You'll first see these enemies in Ice Man's stage, and if you
don't go about killing them the right way, they'll become as annoying as
Bladers. If you shoot a Crazy Razy in the head, it dies. Case closed. Time
for some pie. But if you shoot it in the body, its head will fly off and
start diving at you in the same manner as a Blader. To avoid this, either
make sure you shoot them in the head, or simply bust out the Thunder Beam
or Rolling Cutter.
Fire Beam --- They're rare, but they're annoying. In Fire Man's level,
you will occasionally come across two blocks periodically creating a
line of fire between them. That's a Fire Beam. It can't be killed or
stopped, so you'll simply have to do your best to avoid them.
Fire Column --- Fire Columns aren't a traditional enemy per say, but they
show up enough to warrant a mention. The only thing that Fire Columns do
is rise up, sit there, then retract back to where they came from. What
needs to be mentioned is the fact that they can be frozen with the Ice
Slasher and used as platforms.
Fire Wave --- Another enemy that loves Fire Man's level. Fire Waves
aren't necessarily enemies, but they deserve a mention. In Fire Man's
level, you'll come across a couple of rooms with loads of Fire Waves
passing through at blinding speed. These enemies cannot be killed
or frozen, so the best (and only) option is to move past them the
best you can.
Fireball --- Fireballs are interesting. In Fire Man's level, you will
oftentimes see little fireballs falling from the top of the screen in
sets of three. Those are Fireballs, and if you stand still, you can
watch Fireballs falling down from the ceiling as much as you'd like.
Each Fireball will fall slightly to the right or left, and they fall
so slowly that they are very easy to kill when the time comes. One shot
from the Plasma Beam is all it takes. The only real difficulty posed by
Fireballs is when they show up in precarious areas.
Flying Metool --- An annoying enemy, to say the least. When the Flying
Metool is closed, it is invincible. When it opens, it fires eight bullets
in the eight main directions of the compass, then quickly closes again. It
only takes one shot to kill a Flying Metool, but your window of opportunity
is very small. On top of that, Flying Metools like to appear in the most
dangerous of areas, and in infinite succession. Rather than killing them,
the best option is to learn their pattern, avoid them, and quickly move
past them.
Flying Penguin --- Flying Penguins are _exactly_ like Bullet Bills, except
they don't blow up when you kill them.
Hopper --- Of all the normal enemies in the game, the Hopper is by far the
most dangerous. It can kill you in three hits, and is a real pain in the
ass to try to take down, no matter what weapon you have equipped. As the
name implies, Hoppers like to jump around. But they are far more than
bumbling idiots. They jump in one direction, and one direction only: at
you. Whatever is a weak little robot to do? Well, you have two choices.
You can constantly move away from the Hopper and fire whatever weapons
your little heart desires at the Hopper every time it lands, or you can
run under the Hopper whenever it makes a high jump. The first option
seems like the most fun, but the problem is that the Hopper will
regenerate if you move too far backwards. The second option is the safest,
but it's very difficult to run under the Hopper, simply because you never
know when it will actually make a high jump. No matter which option you
choose, know this: if you take any damage from the Hopper whatsoever,
use your temporary invincibility to run past it. No need to put yourself
at a risk twice.
Met Miner --- Met Miners exist to give a miner's feel to Guts Man's stage.
Unfortunately, they're pretty easy to kill. Like Sniper Joes, they have a
shield. Unlike Sniper Joes, they don't use it very much. When the Met Miner
drops its shield, it will throw a ton of pickaxes at you. Take this time
to run under the pickaxes and kill it with whatever you have. Doesn't this
guy remind you of a poor man's Bowser?
Metool --- Metools are as big a part of the Mega Man series as the main man
himself. You've all seen them. They're the little guys with the yellow
hardhats, and as you probably know, you can only hurt them when they come
out from under their hats to shoot at you. They only take one shot from
the Plasma Beam to take down in Mega Man 1, but either way, how can you
not love these little guys?
Pea Shooter --- The Pea Shooter is another version of a Turret, though it's
far more annoying to deal with. For starters, it's impossible to damage a
Pea Shooter while it is closed. Two, the Pea Shooters themselves are usually
placed in far more precarious areas than the simple Turrets. Three, the Pea
Shooter has a far more difficult pattern to recognize. Finally, the Pea
Shooters are often placed in tight groups. This means that there are very
few safe spots to work with, and your timing must be impeccable in order
to kill them without taking too much damage. It sounds tough, and oftentimes
it is.
Popper --- Poppers love bottomless pits. Over many of the bottomless pits
in Mega Man 1, you will see a suicidal enemy jump up, explode into four
fragments, then explode all over the ground around you. Because these enemies
only appear over bottomless pits, caution needs to be exercised when dealing
with them. Killing them is somewhat pointless since they'll only regenerate,
and the best method of dealing with them is to simply avoid them. You can
try to squeeze through the fragments prior to them exploding all over the
ground around you, but I find it better to simply hang left, jump over the
entire attack, then jump over the pit with ease.
Rolling Cutter --- In Cut Man's stage, you will see two gray buildings that
fire little Pac Man look-a-likes at you. Believe it or not, those are
actually scissors. Don't even worry about killing them, because they're
nice enough to simply let you run under them.
Screw --- Annoying little enemies that have but one method to attack. They
jump at you. That's it. And like most enemies so simple, they are an ease
to take down. One shot from virtually any weapon in your arsenal kills a
Screw, but the one threat that comes from the Screw enemies are that some
of them are very small and impossible to hit with the Plasma Beam while
they are on the ground. For these little rats, bust out any weapon capable
of hitting them, most notably the Thunder Beam, and fry the hell out of
them.
Sniper Joe --- Sniper Joes appear in many Mega Man games. In this one, they
are green enemies, complete with their traditional shields. When Sniper
Joe has his shield up, you can't hit him. The only times you can attack him
are when he's doing his Mexican Jumping Bean routine or when he's shooting
at you. When he's jumping in place, just fire away at him. When he's
shooting at you, make sure you avoid his attacks while getting in shots of
your own. His pattern can be tricky at first, but after dealing with him a
couple of times, he becomes really easy to kill.
Spike Bot --- Spike Bots are damned annoying until you get a special
weapon, simply because the Plasma Beam does no damage to them. It freezes
them in place, but it can't kill them. The Spike Bots themselves do little
more than traverse back and forth across the platforms that they lie on,
and when Mega Man lands on their platform, they move faster. Avoid them
the best you can until you have a special weapon to kill them with.
Suzy --- Suzies, like the Spike Bots, are another enemy that likes to
guard things rather than attack. The difference is that the Suzies often
appear in far larger numbers than Spike Bots, and the pattern is different.
The Suzy itself is a much larger enemy than the Spike Bot, and instead of
traveling back and forth on a platform, the Suzy stands in one spot, then
jumps back and forth between platforms. Suzies are tougher than Spike Bots,
but after you get some special weapons, they too will drop like rocks.
Turret --- Turrets are a decent little enemy that can cause a lot of damage
to players that are not weary of them. Turrets pop up from the ground, fire
off two rounds consisting of five bullets each, then retreat back into the
ground. They don't fire at you until you get within six panels of its
range, so the best way to kill them is to stand at a distance and fire away.
But there is a slight problem. Turrets that lie directly on the ground can't
be shot simply with the Plasma Beam, so you'll have to bust out one of your
special weapons to take it down. In the case of not having any such weapons
yet, stand six panels away from the Turret and fire away as it pops up. If
you're fast enough, you should be able to kill it before it attacks you at
all. If not, jump over its attack and kill it later. They aren't
particularly difficult to kill, but a few well-placed Turrets can be a real
pain.
Watcher --- Watchers are green eyeball enemies that love to shoot lightning
at you, so be on the lookout for them in Elec Man's level most particularly.
On some screens, everything looks empty when you first enter. But after a
few seconds, Watchers appear out of no where. When a Watcher is on eye level
with you, it will fire two lightning bolts. Considering that Watchers
usually come in large groups, this can start to be a pain in the rear. The
key is to get the jump on them. Notice how when the Watchers get to your
level, they stick out two arms to fire lightning at you? If you have a
stream of Plasma Beam shots going, the Watchers will stick their arms out
and die.
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+ IV. Item List +
+++++++++++++++++
Energy Pellet --- Energy Pellets are your best friend in this game, as they
restore your health. They come in two sizes, and are yellow and white in
color. The smaller Energy Pellets restore four bars to Mega Man's life bar,
while the large ones restore roughly 30% of Mega Man's maximum health to him.
These items are a must-have, and if you find yourself low on health, run
back and forth and start killing the infinitely spawning enemies that appear
throughout the game. You're bound to get yourself up to speed sooner or
later.
Extra Life --- If you see Mega Man's head lying in a level somewhere, go
get it. It's an Extra Life. That is, of course, assuming you didn't give
yourself five lives to start with in the MMAC version of the game. In this
case, you don't exactly need extra lives. Pansy.
Point Pellet --- Mega Man 1 was the first, and only, Mega Man game to use a
point system. It has no effect on the game whatsoever, and I personally find
it completely useless. But for those of you that care, a single Point Pellet
adds 1,000 points to your score at the end of the level.
Weapon Capsule --- Weapon Capsules are like Energy Pellets, except they
restore energy to Mega Man's weapons. Be warned that if the weapon is not
equipped, then the weapon's energy will not be restored. Of course, for
those of you playing the MMAC version of the game, you don't need to
constantly pause the game simply to restore weapon energy. Press L1 or R1
until you see a weapon in need of restoration, then pick the capsules up.
Yashichi --- Only one of these appears in the entire game, but there is a
good reason for this. The Yashichi fills all of Mega Man's health, all of
Mega Man's weapon energy for every weapon, and gives you 100,000 points.
++++++++++++++++++
+ V. Walkthrough +
++++++++++++++++++
Dr. Wily wasn't always evil. In fact, he used to be Dr. Light's assistant in
the lab. Before the events of Mega Man 1, Wily and Light worked together to
create multiple humanoid robots for the services of mankind. Unfortunately, Dr.
Wily turned evil and reprogrammed nearly all of the robots. It was up to Mega
Man, one of the few who resisted Wily, to take down all of Wily's new toys and
save the world from being annihilated; thus, the events of one of the biggest
and best series in all of gaming were set into motion. The series has taken
some inconsistent turns in the story, but the roots remain the same: Dr. Light
is the source of all that is good, Dr. Wily is a complete jackass, and Mega Man
is the character who is sent out to save the world time and time again.
The interesting thing about Mega Man 1 is that there are some rather odd
things in the game. Mega Man slides all over the place, Ice Man's stage is pure
hell due to glitches, and there are only six robot masters as opposed to the
normal eight. But with this said, it was the first game in the series. There
are a couple of things wrong with the game, but it isn't like Capcom didn't go
out and fix them in a hurry. Even still, the original game in the series still
kicks ass in its own right.
=== i. Bomb Man ===
Bomb Man's stage is the perfect stage to begin with. Not only is the level
easy, but Bomb Man himself is pathetic. Starting with Bomb Man is also the most
efficient way to complete the game, simply because you won't have to go through
Elec Man's stage twice.
When the level begins, go right and watch as some screw jump at you. Take care
of them with the Plasma Beam, then climb the stairs. On the other side, a few
more Screws will come after you, but it's nothing to be overly concerned with.
As you continue right, you'll encounter a couple of bottomless pits, but don't
rush to jump over them. Poppers fly out of each pit, and after they fly
straight up into the air, they split into four pieces and explode into the
ground. The best to get past them is to let them fly into the air, then stand
in between their fragments as they fall harmlessly around you. Another good
strategy is to jump to the left as the Popper explodes. By doing this, you can
simply jump over all of the fragments altogether. Regardless, try to practice
avoiding the Popper attacks early, because you're about to jump over four
bottomless pits containing them. When you're ready, move past the area with
caution.
On the other side, you'll see a Turret sitting on the ground. Before getting
too close, know that the Turret's pattern of attack is that it pops up, fires
off two volleys of five bullets each, then retracts back into the ground. Two
of the bullets fire horizontally from the Turret's perspective, one fires
straight, and two fire at the two 45 degree angles. With this in mind, drop
down to the Turret's level and start blasting away with the Plasma Beam. If
you're fast enough, you can kill the Turret before it fires anything at all. If
not, make two small jumps to avoid the Turret's attacks before blasting it to
hell once and for all. There are three Turrets down there, so deal with them
all accordingly. All you have at this point is your Plasma Beam, so the Weapon
Capsule is useless. Jump up the platforms and climb the ladder.
As soon as you reach the next screen, you will see four Pea Shooters on your
left. Before they start shooting at you, move Mega Man up so that there are
four ladder rungs between him and the bottom of the screen. This places Mega
Man on the one safe spot that exists on the ladder, and you can have fun
watching as many bullets fly past you as you wish. When you're ready to move
on, kill the Pea Shooter on the bottom first. From there, kill the second to
last Pea Shooter, and from there, this screen is a cakewalk. Kill the final two
Pea Shooters, grab the Energy Pellet if you need it, then climb the ladder to
the next screen.
Oh, look. No enemies. Trust me, it doesn't last. Go right, and prepare to meet
Sniper Joe for the first time. He appears in most Mega Man games, but sadly,
he's never much for putting up a decent fight. When he's jumping in place, fire
at will. When he drops his shield, jump over his attack and retaliate by
blasting him to death. When he's done for, continue moving right along the long
path until you finally see a platform. Jump on it, and prepare to deal with
some Bullet Bills. Bullet Bills are flying enemies that will come at you in an
infinite succession until you keep moving forward, and they explode upon death.
But oddly enough, it's rare for any of them to come close to hurting you if you
keep a constant stream of Plasma Beam shots going. Either way, get to the top
of the mini staircase while dealing with the Bullet Bills as you see fit.
Thankfully, they stop coming after you all of two jumps later. Wierd. At the
top of the platform, stand on the right side. There is a Pea Shooter on the
other side of a gap, but in your current position, it can't hit you. To get
past it, wait until the Pea Shooter closes, then quickly jump down to its area
to put a Plasma Beam shot right in its face as it opens up again. Get past the
next two Pea Shooters in the exact same manner, then climb the ladder on the
other side of them.
Go right, and completely avoid the Spike Bots altogether. You can't kill them
with your Plasma Beam, so the best course of action here is to simply drop down
to the lower area, then quickly jump on the small platforms in the middle. From
here, you can easily reach the ladder. Climb it and move on. The next area is
one simple screen, but it can be annoying. Bullet Bills will fly at you until
you exit the screen, but the only way to do so is to climb a ladder on the
right-hand side first. The trick her is to let a Bullet Bill move past you,
then quickly climb the ladder. Once at the top, turn right and kill the next
Bullet Bill that appears, and from there, jump across the platforms and climb
the ladder to the next area.
The next area is probably the only part of this entire level that can actually
be difficult. You have to jump across small platforms that hover over spikes.
This would be easy, except that Flying Metools will infinitely appear from the
right side of the screen. Don't waste your time killing them, because they will
only come back. Instead, you must avoid them as you jump across the platforms.
Avoiding the Flying Metools isn't necessarily hard, but doing it while jumping
across the platforms can be tricky. Avoid the bullets whenever you are able,
and try to do the actual jumping while the Metools are closed. After getting
across the spikes, the Metools will continue coming after you. Simply run to
the right, then stand under them slightly to the left or right whenever they
open up. Continue doing this until you reach a ladder. When you see a break in
the Metool pattern, climb the ladder. Once at the top, there is a small area
containing a Sniper Joe and an extra life that you can jump into if you feel
you need it. When you're done, drop down to the passageway below the secret
area and continue moving on.
Hey look, we're at the end of the level! Sort of. Take down the Sniper Joe and
enter the hallway. Mega Man 1 is the first (and only) Mega Man game to feature
enemies in the boss hallways, though none of these such hallways are anything
catastrophic. In this particular area, all you need to get as far right as you
can before dropping down the pit. You'll fall past two screens full of Suzies
unharmed and will end up in the middle of Bomb Man's room.
Boss: Bomb Man
Weapon: Hyper Bomb
Weakness: Fire Storm
Difficulty: 1/10
You don't have Bomb Man's weakness, but trust me, it doesn't matter. Bomb Man
is absolutely pathetic, and even if you blow the battle completely, the only
way you should realistically lose is by being nearly dead once the battle
starts. All Bomb Man does is jump around the room and fire Hyper Bombs at you.
This _could_ be hard, except that Bomb Man himself is God-awful slow, so
moving under him as he jumps is a snap. As for his Hyper Bombs, they're easy
as anything to avoid. They don't detonate on contact, and you can all the time
you need to avoid them. Even if you get hit a few times, it doesn't exactly
matter. Just keep the Plasma Beam flying, and Bomb Man should easily go down
before you do.
After the battle, you get the Hyper Bomb for yourself. Unless you're facing
enemies that stand still, they're as useless when you use them as they were
when Bomb Man used them. But don't worry, the weapons get better later on.
=== ii. Guts Man ===
Guts Man's stage is fairly short, and the hardest part of the level is right at
the beginning. Aside from that, the level isn't too bad, and Guts Man himself
provides a minimal challenge at best.
When the level first begins, you'll have a staircase to climb. Three Metools
lie in wait on the stairs, and anyone who has ever played a Mega Man game knows
how to take a Metool down. Wait for it to come out from under its hat to shoot
at you, then make sure you shoot it first. After killing all three Metools,
you'll find yourself at the top of the stairs in front of the moving platforms
from hell. Don't feel discouraged if you have some problems here, because this
one area has caused an absolute _ton_ of complaints.
The idea is simple enough. There are three moving platforms that ride along
conveyor belts over midair, and you must use them to reach the solid ground on
the other side. The problem is that the conveyor belts have little holes in
them that cause the platforms to spill anything riding them (YOU, in other
words) into the bottomless pit below. Before going out into the abyss, take a
quick look at what the conveyor belts look like:
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The little ball on the bottom is what keeps the platform on the conveyor belts,
and the top part would be the platform. From personal experience, I find that
the platforms are easier to traverse if you stay on the left side of the
conveyor belts. It's also much easier to do this if you look at the ball, not
Mega Man.
When you're ready, jump on the first platform. This conveyor belt has no holes
in it, so you're safe for the time being. Instead of jumping onto the second
conveyor belt right when you see it, let it pass under you. Ride the first
platform all the way to the right, then jump on the second platform as you're
moving left. Not only does this make the jump easier, but it gives you more
than enough time to prepare for the first of those conveyor belt holes I was
talking about. As you approach the hole, act like you're jumping over solid
ground. The platform will catch you on the other side. Continue riding this
platform back and forth until you are able to jump on the third and final
platform while it is on the leftmost side of its conveyor belt. Trying to
shortcut your way onto the third platform is absolute suicide, so just be
patient. Once on the third platform, you have a whopping FIVE conveyor belt
holes to jump over. It's not as bad as it sounds, however, simply because the
holes are all evenly spaced out. All you really need here is good timing, so do
what you have to do. Once you're at the end of the conveyor belt, you'll
finally see some solid ground. Run as far right on the platform as you can, and
jump for it. If done right, you'll be just fine.
Keep going right, and say hello to one of the most annoying enemies in the
game, the Blader. They're a cinch to kill with either the Thunder Beam or
Fire Storm, but you don't have either of those. To make this as painless as
possible, kill the first three Bladers you come across, then run like
hell. They'll nose dive at you when you get too close, but if you're able to
run opposite their direction as soon as they begin their dive, you should be
able to kill them by quickly turning around and planting a bullet right in its
face. But even if you master how to kill these things, they're nothing to screw
around with. Run right, and jump up the platforms. The Bladers will stop
coming, and you'll be treated to an Energy Pellet. Knock yourself out. After
collecting the it, drop down into the next area.
Hey look, another new enemy! This guy's name is the Met Miner, and his deal is
to act like a really, REALLY stupid Sniper Joe. He has a shield, but instead of
using strategy, he usually just drops his shield and begins throwing pickaxes
at you rapid fire. This leaves him wide open for you to rip him to shreds with
your Plasma Beam, and to top it all off, his pickaxes are easy to avoid. Just
run under them while firing your Plasma Beam, and watch the Met Miner drop like
a rock. Jump up the platforms, then kill another Met Miner. Continue right,
then watch in horror as a Met Miner steals your platform away from you. Kill
it, jump over the spikes, then enjoy a nice, large, plat piece of solid ground.
Another Met Miner will show up, but you should be a master of killing these
things by now. When he's taken care of, drop down into the next area.
DO. NOT. MOVE. If you do, you'll have to deal with more of those Bladers
upon landing. Stay put, and as you drop down into the next screen, hold the
Left button on your D-Pad. You'll land on a platform with an Energy Pellet.
From there, drop into the pit on the left. Hold down the Left button again, and
you'll land on a platform high in the air. You'll be able to reach an extra
life from here, but it's a difficult jump that you have all of one chance at
pulling off. No matter what happens, you'll eventually fall through the pit and
into the next area.
For the first time, you will encounter the jumping battle tank known as the
Hopper. This guy is such a badass that even if you're at full health, he can
kill you in three hits. This means that you can take all of two attacks from
him, tops. There are two methods to take when dealing with Hoppers. One, you
can keep a safe distance and blast the holy hell out of him, or two, you
can wait for it to make a high jump and run under it. Unfortunately for you,
your back is up against a wall here, and your only option is to fight it. Fire
away with your Plasma Beam as fast as you possibly can, and if you're lucky,
you may be able to kill it before it reaches your level. If you can't then you
only have one choice left. Wait for it to reach your level, then run under it
when it makes its next jump. If the jump is high, you'll safely run under it.
If not, you'll be taking some heavy damage. Either way, the objective here is
to get on the Hopper's right. Whether you do this by killing it, running under
it, or running through it, do what you must. On the other side of the Hopper is
the door that leads to the boss's hallway. I told you this level was short,
didn't I? =)
Once in the hallway, do nothing but run right while firing a constant stream of
bullets from your Plasma Beam. Four dead Metools later, you'll find yourself at
the entrance to Guts Man's room. Equip the Hyper Bomb, and get ready for
another easy battle.
Boss: Guts Man
Weapon: Super Arm
Weakness: Hyper Bomb
Difficulty: 3/10
Guts Man has but one attack, and one attack only. When you see a block fall
from the wall, know that Guts Man will catch it and send it flying straight at
you. All you need to do is jump over the attack, but there is one catch.
Whenever Guts Man jumps, an earthquake will resonate upon his landing. You have
to jump _right_ before Guts Man lands. If you jump too soon, you'll get caught
in the Earthquake anyway, and you'll likely take damage.
But despite all of this, the battle is not hard. See how you start the fight
on top of two blocks? This gives you an elevated position on Guts Man right
from the start. Stay there, and fire Hyper Bombs at him from a distance. Better
yet, fire Hyper Bombs at him from midair while you're jumping to avoid his
earthquakes. Guts Man is a slow, bumbling oaf who doesn't have nearly enough
speed necessary to avoid your Hyper Bombs. One or two of the bombs may miss,
but it doesn't matter. You only need to hit him three times. Remember how I
said that the only use Hyper Bombs have are against enemies stupid enough to
get hit by them. That's Guts Man for you. Have fun.
=== iii. Cut Man ===
Cut Man, as well as his level, are the last parts of this game that I would
call easy. Enjoy it while it lasts.
You start off the level on pretty solid ground with a ladder to your left.
Climb it, then head right. You will soon come across some more of those
annoying Bladers. The easiest way to combat these enemies to stay on the ground
as much as possible. The more airborne you are, the more damage you will take;
these guys are bloodthirsty little bastards, aren't they? After getting past
one or two of them, drop down to the area below. The wide open space will make
it easier to deal with the next set of enemies. The best strategy to use for
killing them is to let one dive at you, then take a quick step back. After
doing so, take a quick step forward to face the enemy, then blast it right in
the face. One shot kills them, so the only hard part is catching up to them
fast enough to shoot them in the first place.
Of course, you could just equip the Super Arm and make good use of all the
Super Arm Blocks lying around.
Go up the ladder to the right, then jump over the block and drop down into the
next area low to the ground. This will make it easier for you to deal with the
next set of Bladers that come along. Once they're properly disposed of, make
your way up the staircase and take care not to fall into the bottomless pit. As
you make your way right, you will soon find yourself under two Pea Shooters. Go
as far right as you can and hug the wall. The only way to kill a Pea Shooter
with your Plasma Beam is to fire upon it while it is open. Face the rightmost
Pea Shooter, and time your jump so that you can jump and fire just as it opens
itself up. You avoid having to worry about its return fire this way. From here,
climb the ladder and cap the other Pea Shooter from behind at will. All you
need to do is hold left and fire, and Mega Man will do the rest. When that's
done and over with, climb the ladder to the next screen.
In the next section, you start out right under three Pea Shooters. Cap the one
above your head, then jump left over the pit. From there, stand directly under
the ladder. The Pea Shooters can't touch you, don't worry. From there, wait
until two bullets fly over your head. After they do, climb the ladder. Once
again, the Pea Shooters cannot touch you here. Get the timing right, then cap
the lower Pea Shooter just as it opens up. From there, it's one more simple
shot to the final Pea Shooter before you clear this area and move on. Do so.
Upon reaching the next area, you must quickly face left and fire at the Pea
Shooter on your level before it can start firing at you. If you can't make it
in time, the bullets should be easy enough to avoid. Either way, kill it.
From there, climb the closest ladder, avoid the bullets from the top Pea
Shooter, than point your Plasma Beam in its ugly little face before it shoots
upon you again.
Or you could just be nice and avoid it altogether. No matter what you do, the
goal is the ladder at the top right of the screen. The next area greets you
with three hard-to-reach Pea Shooters. As soon as you enter this screen, climb
up a tiny bit and open your arsenal upon the Pea Shooter to your left. From
there, run to the ladder, and take note that the top two thirds of this ladder
are safe zones away from the Pea Shooter bullets. When the timing is right,
climb the ladder and run all the way right. You know what to do from here,
right? =)
Thank God, we're finally at the top of this damned tower. Pay no attention to
that gray thing firing the Rolling Cutters at you, by the way. All you need to
do to avoid damage here is to run under the building as if it weren't even
there. The Rolling Cutters that are fired upon you are set to land where you
are when they're first fired, not where you're going. This means that you can
run past the building and watch as a ton of scissors fly over your head.
Stupid, isn't it? Once you're past it, some Screws will jump at you, but thanks
to their large size, they're nothing of concern. Continue going right until you
reach what I like to call Suzy Central. Get ready to face a _ton_ of these
damned things. The first three are easy to take down, so do what you must, then
climb the ladders to move on to the next screen.
The next area, despite having four Suzies, is another joke. But in case you
suck, there is a Super Arm Block just itching to be used to kill the two Suzies
on the lower half of the screen. Not that you can't use the Plasma Beam to take
them both out with equal precision, of course. When those two are out of the
way, climb the ladder and kill the other two Suzies. After your target practice
is over, go to the next screen.
Oh look, four more of these stupid little things. The first one is easy
enough to take down, but the second one and its grand two panel area can be a
bit tricky. It may not look like it, but you can jump next to the Suzy without
taking any damage from it. You just need to make absolute sure that you're
hugging the wall first. When she's down and out, the final two Suzies are a
cakewalk. Just make sure you shoot them from the ladder.
One final thing to note about the Suzy areas thusfar. They're all damned easy
to clear. If you need any health at all, this is the area to do it. The enemies
are all easy to kill, and you can regenerate them as many times as you choose
simply by going back and forth between screens. When you're good and ready,
climb into the final Suzy screen. FINALLY!!
This is the only Suzy area that can pose any decent challenge, but it's better
than nothing. From the start, you'll want to make Mega Man turn to the right
without moving him. All you need to do is tap Right on the D-Pad, and from
there, you'll be able to take down the first Suzy with ease. Now, remember the
last screen in which you were able to kill the Suzy without being touched
despite how narrow the area was? Same deal here. After killing another Suzy in
the exact same manner, the rest of this area becomes a cinch. Have fun killing
the remaining three Suzies in whatever manner you damned well please. When
you're done your vicious little mean streak, climb yet another ladder to move
up yet another screen.
Whew, we're finally at the top of this mess. Deja vu all over again, as Yogi
Berra once said. You've seen this building before, so you know what to do. Run
past it like it's not even there, watch all of the Rolling Cutters fly over
your head, laugh at their idiocy, and move on. Don't enjoy it too much though,
because you'll have to deal with some Bladers next. Thankfully for you, you'll
only have to fight three of them if you do nothing but run right and rapidly
fire the Plasma Beam. With any luck, you may be able to kill them before they
put up a fight in the first place. At the end of this is an Energy Pellet and
a ladder. I'm sure you know what to do.
Well, well, well, if it isn't the Flying Metool. You should know how to avoid
him by now, so do what you must. This screen is nothing more than getting past
the Flying Metool en route to the ladder on the bottom, so by all means, get
past it and climb down.
The next screen features spikes, but it's still easy to get past if you know
what you're doing. As soon as you enter the screen, DO NOT MOVE. Don't worry,
the Flying Metool can't touch you. After it fires three times, press X to drop
off the ladder, then make a mad dash for the bottom of the screen. If you're
fast enough, you'll just barely slip under the next round of bullets. Don't
just stand there. Go down! =)
Mega Man, meet Hopper. Hopper, meet Mega Man. Mega Man, do not move. Wait for
Hopper to jump to your level, then pray to all that is holy upon this dear
earth that he makes a high jump soon afterwards. If not, you'll be taking some
damage. Oh well. No matter what happens, bolt for the exit afterwards. Finally,
this long-but-easy level is over! Well, almost. We still have the hallway full
of Turrets to get past. Now is as good a time as any for some Turret 101.
M~~~~~T
#######
There are three turrets in this hallway. Two are on the ground, one is on the
ceiling, and you only have to deal with one of them at a time. In that diagram
above, M is Mega Man and T is the turret. When you stand six panels away from
the turret, it does not fire on you. When fighting the two Turrets on the
ground, all you need to do is stand at that position, then run directly at the
Turret with Plasma Beams blazing. For the one Turret on the ceiling, you can
stand at that distance, jump, and shoot the Turret without fear of any return
fire at all. When all three Turrets are gone, equip the Super Arm and enter
Cut Man's room.
Boss: Cut Man
Weapon: Rolling Cutter
Weakness: Super Arm
Difficulty: 1/10
To be blunt, Cut Man is one of the single biggest jokes to ever grace the Mega
Man series. See those Super Arm Blocks in the room? All you need to do to kill
Cut Man is to hit him with both of them.
For those of you who don't want to take the easy way out, Cut Man is _still_ a
joke. The Plasma Beam does a ton of damage to him, and you could probably win
the fight with your eyes closed. On top of all of that, Cut Man's pattern is so
easily seen that it's ridiculous. Cut Man likes to jump high. If you're able to
run under him, knock yourself out. If not, then don't. As for the Rolling
Cutter that he likes to use so much, that's also a joke. If you stand
relatively close to him, then the Rolling Cutter is easily scaled after he
throws it at you. When it starts to fly back towards him, you can (bear with
me here) JUMP OVER IT AGAIN!
Who knew? The only conceivable trouble that you could have is if you jump over
the Rolling Cutter, then Cut Man jumps before it starts flying back at him. But
even then, he'll be taking damage at a far faster rate than you. Have fun
owning his sorry behind.
With him out of the way, the Rolling Cutter, one of the most versatile weapons
in the entire Mega Man series, is all yours. This also marks the end of the
easy road, because it gets much tougher from here on in.
=== iv. Elec Man ===
Ugh. This guy's level is a real pain in the ass if you don't know what you're
doing, despite how easy it may look. Add in the fact that lightning does a ton
of damage to Mega Man in this game, and you have quite the uphill climb in this
level if you aren't careful.
Right off the bat, you're presented with a challenge. If you forget that you
own the Rolling Cutter, that is. It can kill all of the Spike Bots in this room
with ease, so you don't have to worry about dancing across the platforms and
taking a load of damage. Simply slice the enemies apart and climb the ladder.
Another room, two more Spike Bots. Own them with your Rolling Cutter like you
did in the last room, then climb the ladder. Once in the next area, jump the
gap. If need be, go down the ladder on the right and collect the large Energy
Pellet that you passed in the last area. Bear in mind that you will need to get
past the Spike Bots again using Rolling Cutter. When you're finally ready to
move on, note the pattern in which the electricity comes out at you. It's the
same thing every time, so take as long as you please to determine when the
break is in the pattern. When you decide to jump, do so and move past the
lightning bolts. They do a ton of damage, so make absolute sure that you know
what you're doing before you do it. When you're past them, move on to the next
screen.
In the next area, all you will see to start is a ladder in the middle. But soon
enough, you will see green eyeball-looking enemies called Watchers showing up
from the top and bottom of the screen. Their deal is that once they're on eye
level (pun) with you, they fire two lightning bolts at you. With six of them
showing up on the screen at once, this can wind up causing quite a bit of
damage. Rolling Cutter also won't be able to cut it (another pun <_<) this
time, so you'll have to rely on the Plasma Beam. The key here is to get the
jump on the Watchers. You don't have to shoot at the main body of the Watcher.
Simply keep a steady stream of shots going, and laugh as the Watchers die after
sticking out their arms. Knowing this, the three that come from the bottom
should die with ease. All you need to do now is to kill the Watchers coming
from the top by sticking to your platform and taking them all out with jump
shots. Climb the ladder up and out of this area once it's cleared. The next
area is _exactly_ the same as this one, so use the exact same strategy to clear
it. Fire a constant stream of shots right until three Watchers go down, then
kill the ones that will be close above your head by this point. Climb the
ladder to finally see something new.
And wouldn't you know it. We get to deal with blocks that appear out of thin
air. Any Mega Man veteran should know (and detest) these things, but what can
you do? They don't sit there forever, but they do follow a pattern that is
easy enough to follow. Here's a map:
+------------------------+
| LL LL|
| LL LL|
| XX LL|
| LL|
| 44 33 XX|
| |
| 22 11 |
| |
| |
| XX |
| |
| |
| LLXXXX |
| LLXXXX |
| LLXXXX |
+------------------------+
L = Ladder
X = Solid Ground
1 = First Block
2 = Second Block
3 = Third Block
4 = Fourth Block
The pattern for the room is as follows:
-First Block appears
-Second Block appears
-just before the Third Block appears, the First Block disappears
-Third Block appears
-just before the Fourth Block appears, the Second Block disappears
-Fourth Block appears
-just before the First Block reappears, the Third Block disappears
-First Block reappears
-just before the Second Block reappears, the Fourth Block disappears
And so on and so forth. Once you have it down, use the First and Third Block to
get to the ladder on the top-right. In the next area, you'll see the reward
that you missed by taking this path. You'll also notice that it's impossible to
move on to the next area. But like the proverbial cavalry to save the day, the
appearing-disappearing-reappearing blocks start to show up again. Don't worry,
no ASCII art this time around. The blocks form a nice chain for you to walk
across, and the pattern is easy enough to see without help. One thing to note
is that you can still reach the Weapon Capsules from here. Simply make a small
jump from off the Fourth Block, miss the ladder on purpose, and hold Left. It's
a rather easy jump to make, though bear in mind that you'll have to enter the
last room and climb back up again. Not that it's hard or anything, right? ~_^
When you're ready, climb the two ladders and move on.
Go up the staircase and to the right. Avoid the Energy Pellet unless you are in
dire need of its use, for the jump to get out of where the Energy Pellet is is
very difficult to make. The next area is a bottomless pit with blocks over it.
It looks scary, but you'll be okay so long as you time your jumps well and
avoid sliding. Mega Man, for whatever reason, loves to slide all over the place
no matter what surface he is standing on, so try not to move that much once you
are on the midair blocks. Take your time between jumps, and you'll be just
fine. Grab the ladder in midair, then climb it to move on.
No enemies and two ladders, eh? Not so fast. Watchers will be coming in the
exact same manner as before, so don't climb the ladders yet. Instead, take the
delay they use and go right in the middle of the screen. Now face Mega Man to
the right and fire a constant stream of shots. All three of the Watchers that
appear from the bottom will go down with ease. Now turn Mega Man to the left
and fire off another constant stream of shots. Wouldn't you know it? The
Watchers that appear from the top of the screen die as well. You now have two
ladders to take, which are obviously two different paths through the next few
sections. For the next few areas, the guide will separate them.
First Path: The first area is easy enough. After climbing the ladder, bust out
the Rolling Cutter and kill the three Spike Bots guarding the
platforms. When you're done, climb the uncontested path and
ascend the ladder.
The next area features Watchers no matter which path you choose,
though they're harder when you're on the left side as you have a
smaller area to deal with the set that come from the top of the
screen. But you should be a Watcher Expert by this point
considering that they're still showing up in the exact same
pattern. Kill them all and move on. Note that there is a Super Arm
Block should you decide to switch sides.
How sweet, our paths have come together once again. And what's
that screw behind the Super Arm Blocks, you ask? It gives you an
ability called the Magnet Beam, which is _ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY_ to
clear Dr. Wily's levels. You cannot beat the game without it.
Period. So get in there and do your thing with the Super Arm.
NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THE SUPER ARM, YOU _MUST_ TAKE THE LEFT
PATH FROM HERE.
In the next area, you have more platforms being guarded by Spike
Bots. Bust out the Rolling Cutter and clean house. When the area
is clear, jump on the ladder and ascend to the next screen. Take
note that there is a Super Arm Block should you decide to switch
sides.
The next area features nothing but one ladder and two lightning
bolts to avoid. You should know what to do by now, just be
careful doing it.
Once on the next screen, _do not move_. Wait for the Screws to go
flying off the left side of the screen. From there, you have two
more lightning bolts to move past. After you're past the second
one, quickly jump up and grab the ladder to get past all of this.
Second Path: This half of this one area is enough for me to recommend the first
path to you. Lightning causes a lot of damage, and the first bolt
is a real pain in the ass to avoid. To do so, hang on the ladder
right under the first bolt. When it stops for a moment, quickly
climb up, run left, and jump onto the next ladder. If done right,
you should take no damage. Repeat the process and move on to the
next area.
Watchers will be showing up here in the exact same pattern as
before, but don't worry about killing them all. Quickly jump on
the hanging ladder, then climb up a little bit. Begin firing shots
to your left, which should kill the three Watchers that come from
the top of the screen. Ignore everything else and finish climbing
up the ladder.
How sweet, our paths have come together once again. And what's
that screw behind the Super Arm Blocks, you ask? It gives you an
ability called the Magnet Beam, which is _ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY_ to
clear Dr. Wily's levels. You cannot beat the game without it.
Period. So get in there and do your thing with the Super Arm.
NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THE SUPER ARM, YOU _MUST_ TAKE THE LEFT
PATH FROM HERE.
The next area consists of one ladder and two more lightning bolts
that appear periodically. Get the pattern down, then pass through
them one at a time. It isn't too difficult, but take as much time
as you need. These things cause a ton of damage. When you're
clear, climb the rest of the ladder and go to the next screen.
Take note that there is a Super Arm Block should you decide to
switch sides.
The right path gets the easy way out in the next area. There are
two ladders and only one lightning bolt to avoid. The bolt is also
in an easy spot, so you should have no trouble getting past it.
Climb the ladders and move on.
The only way you can get past this section is if you have the
Super Arm, so don't even bother reading on if you're taking a
different path through the game. If you do, then it's obvious what
to do. Kill the enemy, climb the ladder, move the Super Arm Block
out of the way, and get on that ladder.
Whew, it's finally over with. You've seen the next area before, remember? It's
another bottomless pit area that features hovering blocks. Luckily for you,
they're all positioned in the exact same manner as they were previously. Make
your jumps carefully, and take care not to move while on the blocks to avoid
sliding off. Once you're near the ladder, climb onto it in midair and move
onward.
The next screen is nothing more than two blocks that fire lightning out of
their right sides. Wait for a break in the pattern, then jump up on both blocks
and climb the ladder. After doing so, you get to deal with another Hopper.
Trying to kill it is pointless, as you will take a load of damage once it
pushes you too far to the left. Wait for the chance for him to (hopefully) make
a high jump, then run under him and through the door.
Finally, the home stretch! No hallways this time, just some more ladders. You
have a gigantic ladder to climb that covers two screens. In both screens, you
must avoid three lightning bolts while making your way up. Don't worry, the
pattern is easy enough to see and move through. You may simply need to take
your time a little to avoid getting hit and having to start all over again. And
you also may want to equip the Rolling Cutter before starting your climb in the
first place. Once you finally reach the top, you are thrust into a battle
against Elec Man.
Boss: Elec Man
Weapon: Thunder Beam
Weakness: Rolling Cutter
Difficulty: 5/10
Elec Man is quite the interesting boss. He has one of the single strongest
attacks in the entire game, and it will kill you if you get hit by it three
times. On the other hand, you have the Rolling Cutter that kills Elec Man if
_he_ gets hit a mere three times. Because of the damage of Thunder Beam, this
battle would considerably more difficult, but still possible, without the
Rolling Cutter. But with it, the fight itself becomes rather easy. His pattern
is simple enough. He stays somewhat low to the ground and fires Thunder Beam,
but the attack is do damned hard to avoid that it can make the fight rather
difficult at times. You're prodding along kicking Elec Man's ass, when suddenly
he rips you to holy hell with the Thunder Beam. But thankfully, Elec Man's habit
of staying low to the ground makes him a cinch to kill with the Rolling Cutter.
There are Super Arm Blocks in the room, but I feel that it is better to simply
avoid them. One, the blocks themselves don't cause nearly the damage of Rolling
Cutter when using them as weapons in the fight. Two, using the Super Arm Blocks
as a means of avoiding the Thunder Beam makes the fight harder on yourself,
because it becomes much more difficult to hit Elec Man with the Rolling Cutter.
So it's settled then. As soon as the battle begins, turn right and fire a
Rolling Cutter right in Elec Man's face. Then go left a little bit and jump.
Not only does this give you a decent shot at jumping over the Thunder Beam
he fires, but the Rolling Cutter should also hit Elec Man a second time upon
its return flight to you. At the absolute worst, you have taken one hit by this
point. Assuming you were at full health coming in, this means that Elec Man can
take one shot to your two. Fire another Rolling Cutter in his face to end this
nonsense before it gets ugly.
When the battle is over, you get the Thunder Beam for yourself. The Thunder
Beam, plain and simple, is one of the best weapons in the entire Mega Man
series. It fires in three directions --- straight up, straight down, and
straight ahead --- and the blast that goes straight ahead is a nuclear laser
to most of the enemies in the game. Take note however that the weapon does
_not_ fire directly above and below Mega Man. The point of origin is one panel
in front of him, which does make a difference. This means that to kill enemies
above or below you with the Thunder Beam, they have to be one panel in front or
behind you when you fire the weapon. Sounds complicated, but it's very easy to
get the hang of.
=== v. Ice Man ===
Quite the interesting stage we have on our hands here. It's not overly
difficult, but you will find that Mega Man can be difficult to control due to
there being ice on the ground in many parts of the level. Not a bad feature in
a game that came out in 1987, really. But navigating on the ice is nothing
particularly nerve-wracking, so enjoy one of the simpler parts of the level
while you can. The second Block Puzzle and the bottomless pit that follows it
is around as annoying as it gets. If you fall in the pit, you're stuck doing
the Block Puzzles again. Never mind the fact that the bottomless pit may very
well feature the most annoying video game glitch in the history of video games.
And if I'm not mistaking, wasn't this one of the first, if not _the_ first,
games to have your character sliding on ice?
The beginning of the level is easy enough. It's a long walk with the occasional
enemy popping up. In this level, your first tests are green robots called Crazy
Razies. They seem simple enough, but if you shoot them in the body, the head
will come flying off and start diving at you in a similar manner to the Blader
enemy. The head is a real pain to kill, and you're better off avoiding this
situation altogether. The easiest way to do so is to simply shoot the robot in
the head right when you first see it. If not, you'll have to deal with a flying
head. An alternative strategy to simply using your Plasma Beam is to put those
special weapons to good use. Both the Thunder Beam and the Rolling Cutter can
kill a Crazy Razy in one hit without you having to worry about anything else
afterwards.
Start off by walking right and killing the first green robot that comes along.
When that is done and over with, you will come across a plateau with four
levels on it. The first three levels feature green robots, so deal with them
accordingly. I recommend using the Thunder Beam just to avoid taking any
damage. On the other side of this plateau, you will see some water. If you have
played Mega Man games before, you may remember being able to jump rather high
in the water. Sadly, that feature was not in the first Mega Man title. What
_is_ in this game however is the fact that although you still jump the same
height in the water, your jump will be slower than normal. Either way, drop
down into the water when you're ready.
The first thing you will notice is that the area in the water is bi-leveled,
giving you two separate things you can do. You can try to jump from platform to
platform and avoid the occasional Spike Bots that appear below you, or you can
take out all of the enemies en route to the end. I recommend taking all the
enemies out, simply because missing a jump while leaving the Spike Bots alive
can cause damage. Another obstacle to deal with are the infinitely spawning
Penguins that appear in this area. They aren't anything difficult to deal with,
but they still get annoying due to the fact that they don't stop coming. The
easy way to deal with them would be to keep a consistent stream coming from
your Mega Buster. The Penguins always appear in front of you, and as such they
will all die with ease while they go flying into your constant stream of shots
one after the other. This entire area is simply running through, killing the
Spike Bots with the Rolling Cutter, then keeping up a constant stream of Mega
Buster attacks to avoid getting hit by the Penguins. The one bonus to the
Penguins is that because they are easy to kill on top of infinitely respawning
themselves, you can sit and kill Penguins for as long as you wish. If you are
low on health for whatever reason, kill some Penguins to get your strength back
via the Energy Pellets they drop. You can also wait for Weapon Capsules if you
feel the need to do so.
To start this off, go right until you see a Spike Bot. Bust out the Rolling
Cutter to kill it, then switch back to the Plasma Beam. The Penguins will come
once you move on, so be ready for them. As you continue right, you will notice
another Spike Bot. Bust out the Rolling Cutter again, then again switch back to
the Plasma Beam to keep the Penguins from becoming a threat to you. One small
thing to remember is that you cannot switch back to the menu screen until your
Rolling Cutter returns to you, so don't think your game is glitched or
something if you can't press start right away.
Continuing right, you will see another Spike Bot between two platforms. You
know what to do. As you go even farther right, you will finally notice
something different. A staircase will soon show up to help guide you out of the
water, with a Spike Bot guarding the first step. Bust out the Rolling Cutter
once again to kill it, then switch back to the Mega Buster once more and climb
the steps. As you climb upwards, the Penguins will finally stop showing up.
Thank God.
Go right some more until you see a large Energy Pellet being guarded by nothing
more than two Suzies. Drop down to their level, cap the Suzies, and take the
Energy Pellet. From there, you only have one direction to go. Equip the Rolling
Cutter, go right, then drop down to the next area via through that odd thing
that looks like a ladder.
Before you even have time to think, you find yourself on the level with a Spike
Bot in the water. Turn left and quickly fire the Rolling Cutter to kill it. It
seems like there is no way out of this area, but I'm sure you can guess what's
coming next. It's a bit harder then what you saw in Elec Man's place, but you
should still be able to manage. Here is the map of the area and what goes on:
+------------------------+
| LLLL|
| LLLL|
|LLLLXXXX 77 LLLL|
|LLLLXXXX |
|LLLLXXXX |
|LLLLXXXX 66 |
|LLLLXXXX |
|LLLLXXXX 55 44|
|LLLLXXXX22 |
|LLLLXXXX 33 |
|LLLLXXXX 11 |
|LLLLXXXX~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|LLLLXXXX~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|LLLLXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX|
+------------------------+
L = 'Ladder'
X = Solid Ground
~ = Water
1 = First Block
2 = Second Block
3 = Third Block
4 = Fourth Block
5 = Fifth Block
6 = Sixth Block
7 = Seventh Block
The pattern for this room follows the exact same pattern seen in Elec Man's
stage, and you will find that practically every Mega Man title that features
such rooms does the exact same thing. As you can guess, the pattern is that
the First Block disappears just before the Third Block appears, the Second
Block disappears just before the Fourth Block appears, and so on and so on and
so on until the end of time. It is the exact same thing over and over again, so
the patterns followed by these rooms are never anything difficult to _see_.
It's guiding Mega Man through them that can be a problem.
Step to take:
1 - Jump on the First Block. You will have to be midair in order to do so.
2 - After the Second Block appears, jump to the right. You will land on the
Third Block.
3 - The Fourth Block will appear right after the Third Block. Jump on it.
4 - After the Fifth Block appears, jump to the left. You will land on the Sixth
Block.
5 - The Seventh Block will appear after the Sixth Block. Jump on it.
6 - Jump onto the solid ground right of the leftmost 'Ladder'.
Not so bad, right? Make sure you still have the Rolling Cutter equipped, then
drop down into the next area. Upon your arrival, you will land on solid ground.
In the water to your right is a Spike Bot. Drop down, off it with your Rolling
Cutter, and get ready for a much harder version of the Blocks Game. As always,
here is your map:
+------------------------------+
|XXLLLLXXXX |
|XXLLLLXXXX |
|XXLLLL |
|XXLLLL 7B 1B |
|XX |
|XX5B |
|XX 6B XXXX|
|XX 44 33 XXXX|
|XX XXXX|
|XX 5A 22 XXXX|
|XX 6A XXXX|
|XX 7A 1A XXXX|
|XXXXXX~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~XXXX|
|XXXXXX~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~XXXX|
|XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX|
+------------------------------+
L = 'Ladder'
X = Solid Ground
~ = Water
1A = Block 1A (appears at the same time as Block 1B)
1B = Block 1B (appears at the same time as Block 1A)
2 = Second Block
3 = Third Block
4 = Fourth Block
5A = Block 5A (appears at the same time as Block 5B)
5B = Block 5B (appears at the same time as Block 5A)
6A = Block 6A (appears at the same time as Block 6B)
6B = Block 6B (appears at the same time as Block 6A)
7A = Block 7A (appears at the same time as Block 7B)
7B = Block 7B (appears at the same time as Block 7A)
Looks confusing, doesn't it? Well that's what this room was made to do. This is
the first block room that can really give you the fits if you don't know
exactly what to do, so I've tried making it as simple as possible. The room
gives you a ton of blocks to work with here, but the trick behind them is that
you don't need them all to get up to the high landing. The other little trick
that the game throws at you is that the first blocks you see are _not_ the
first blocks you will need to use in order to get past this area. If you were
wondering why I numbered the blocks differently than what shows up in the game,
there is your answer. And finally, blocks labeled A and B show up at the exact
same time. You know the patterns that the blocks use to appear by now, so going
over it again would be pointless at this juncture. Here is the step by step
listing of what to do and when:
1 - Jump on block 1A. You will have to be in midair in order to do so.
2 - The Second Block will appear after the Blocks 1A and 1B. Jump on it.
3 - The Third Block will appear after the Second Block. Jump on it.
4 - The Fourth Block will appear after the Third Block. Jump on it.
5 - After Blocks 5A and 5B appear, jump to the right. You will land on Block
6B.
6 - Jump straight up in the air. Block 7B will appear right underneath you.
7 - Block 1B will appear after Block 7B. Jump on it.
8 - Jump to the solid ground on the right.
What a mess. Four blocks in this room aren't used at all to get you out of it.
And if that wasn't annoying enough, you have an even harder puzzle to deal
with as you progress to the right. As you move forward, you will notice that
you are over a bottomless pit. The only way for you to get across is to jump
across four moving platforms. Seems simple enough, but it isn't. The platforms
themselves do not have a set pattern; rather, they simply have a set area that
they are confined to flying in. This isn't too bad, as said confined areas
between the first two platforms are side by side. The problem comes between the
final two platforms. The final area between the last two platforms has a
confined space that is separated. This makes the jump from the third to fourth
platforms extremely difficult, especially considering that instead of the
platforms moving against each other, they move _with_ each other. This means
that to make the jump between the third and fourth platforms, you will need to
wait on the third platform until you are at a very high point. From that high
point, you must jump to the right _just_ as the third platform is done moving
to the right. If the fourth platform is low enough, you will just barely be
able to land on it. From there, you simply have to ride the platform right and
jump off onto solid ground.
Oh, but it gets even better. The platforms themselves do not take kindly to
being jumped on, and as such, they fire bullets out of their sides in a
periodic pattern. The bullets themselves are easy enough to avoid. Simply jump
over them. Don't worry, your platforms aren't moving nearly fast enough to give
you any difficulty in terms of landing back on them. The problem here comes
from the game coding itself. Every once in awhile, you may have to jump
slightly to the left or right to avoid a bullet. This is fine, but doing so may
cause a platform from the left or right that weren't on the screen before your
jump to appear there. This seems pointless, but should you happen to land on
your platform, there is a chance that the game may glitch and forget that the
platform is even there. You'll fall right through the thing, take damage, then
die. Sucks to go through all of that and be victim to a glitch, but it can
happen.
Either way, you need to scale the platforms sooner or later. Getting past the
first three are easy enough. It's the jump from the third to the fourth that
will rip out your hair. All you can do is wait for your platform to climb to a
high point, them jump on the fourth platform. One thing that you can do from
that high point, however, is jump left a little bit and have the fourth
platform respawn from its original low position. This makes the jump doable, so
take the chance when it first arrives. Jump off of the fourth platform and go
collect your Weapon Capsule. I recommend having Rolling Cutter equipped before
starting any of this, simply because there are no enemies to kill and it may
need some recharging.
NOTE: There is a cheap way out of having to make the jump from hell in this
section, and it's called the Magnet Beam. If you don't want to risk dying,
make a Magnet Beam trail and drop down to the platform with the Weapon
Capsule on it.
Switch to the Plasma Beam, and get ready for the next set of platforms. Yeah I
know, you don't want to. But don't worry, for the platforms are all close
together, and thus you avoid any insane jumps like there were in the last set.
What you _do_ need to take note of however is the fact that the Penguins are
back. Start firing off that Mega Buster and make sure they all die before they
get too close. With that in mind, make your jumps from platform to platform,
avoid the bullets fired from the platforms, keep the Mega Buster shots going to
avoid getting knocked off by the Penguins, and get to the other side off all of
this. It may _seem_ hard, but I can assure you that it is much easier than that
damned jump in the previous section.
Finally! The level is almost over. Drop down and hold Left. If you're lucky,
you'll be able to squeeze into the area below and nab the extra life. And even
if you are unable, continue holding Left. The next area features some recovery
items in a ledge that you'll be able to reach. Recover energy to whatever you
need, then drop down again. As you may have guessed, you have to deal with
another one of those damage-inducing Hoppers. As always, wait for it to perform
a high jump, then run under the damned thing. If you feel the need to extract
some punishment, bust out the Thunder Beam after getting past it and clean
house on his ass. Lord knows he deserves it after what he may have caused for
you in previous levels. Enter the door when you're finished.
One final hallway, and it's a blessing in disguise. All you will see is a large
hallway featuring infinite Penguins. Take as long as you need killing Penguins,
for it would be a good idea to restore both your health and the energy bar for
the Thunder Beam just in case it needs a small boost. When you're prepared,
enter the final door to finally end this nightmare of a level.
Boss: Ice Man
Weapon: Ice Slasher
Weakness: Thunder Beam
Difficulty: 2/10
For as hard as this level is in the later stages, it is guarded by a boss that
poses no threat whatsoever. Remember how damaging the Thunder Beam was in the
battle against Elec Man? Well surprise surprise, Ice Man is weak against the
Thunder Beam. Time to go retroactive and unleash holy hell upon all those that
would oppose you by gripping the very power of billions upon billions of
electrons colliding amongst themselves upon the inner torture that
is their world constantly being ripped apart. Grip the power of Zeus himself
in the very palms of your own hands and prepare to unleash your own unholy
judgement upon any and all forces of the world in which you deem unnecessary!
IT IS THE ONLY TIME YOU SHOULD TRULY FEEL ALIVE!!
Don't tell me that you've never read 8 Bit Theater before. Anyway, this battle
is a complete joke. The only reason I didn't grade it a 1 was because of the
ice lying on the ground. As for the boss himself, his pattern is one of the
easiest I have ever seen:
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| << <<|
| << << |
|<< << |
| << << |
| << <<|
| << << |
| << << |
| << << |
| << << |
| << << |
| << << |
| << << |
| << << |
| << << |
| << << |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
That's it. That's the entire pattern that this boss uses. He hovers there in
the air and fires off Ice Slashers in a manner that is very easy to avoid. Even
more simple is the fact that the above example shows the pattern being far
closer than what it truly is. You have _plenty_ of space to jump between Ice
Slashers if need be. But sadly, the battle doesn't even come down to that.
Right when the battle starts, make a very small jump and fire off a Thunder
Beam. You'll notice that no matter where Ice Man is in his pattern, he cannot
avoid a properly-executed short-hop Thunder Beam. With this in mind, repeat the
attack twice more to win. You might have to avoid one set of Ice Slashers along
the way, but we've already gone over how pathetic that attack is. Enjoy the
easy ending to a difficult level. Bear in mind that Ice Slasher can kill you in
three hits, so don't get too arrogant going into this thing. You still need to
avoid the attack to win.
Once the battle is over, you get the Ice Slasher for yourself. While it causes
a lot of damage to you should Ice Man get lucky enough to hit you with it, it
isn't all that great a weapon in and of itself. It causes a fair amount of
damage to enemies, but the Thunder Beam's wider area of effect and
multi-directional attack makes the Ice Slasher somewhat obsolete. Still, the
Ice Slasher can do one thing that Thunder Beam cannot. In the next level, fire
columns will periodically show up. The Ice Slasher can freeze those columns and
make your life a lot easier when the time comes. As for the Ice Slasher's area
of effect, it is a simple one. When fired, a lone Ice Slasher fires out in
front of Mega Man and travels in a straight path. Don't worry, you don't
become a floating target like Ice Man when you use his weapon.
One level to go before we hit the nitty-gritty.
=== vi. Fire Man ===
After the pure hell that was the last level, Fire Man's level is a very
laid-back sort of touch. The music and speed can be somewhat intense, but the
overall difficulty is not that high. The only real issue you should have is
falling into the lava, and even that isn't too hard to avoid when you know the
timing of the enemies.
The beginning of the stage consists of three platforms. You start off on the
bottom, and there are two ladders to ascend to reach the top. But it is no mere
climb, as three Turrets are guarding the path upwards. Rather than climbing the
ladders and attempting to take down the Turrets with your Mega Buster, bust out
the heavy artillery. Those weapons you've been winning from killing bosses are
meant to be used, after all. Isn't it lovely that the first two Turrets are
sitting there one on top of the other like that? Bust out the Thunder Beam and
show them what damage truly is. From there, climb the first ladder and bust out
the Rolling Cutter. Go right a little bit, face the third Turret, and fire away
to take it down. Switch back to the Thunder Beam and climb the second ladder.
As you proceed right, you will notice two more Turrets on two different levels.
But you have the Thunder Beam equipped, so have fun taking them both out in one
shot.
As you proceed to the right, two things will show up. One, you will see that
most of the bottomless pits in this level are guarded by Fire Columns. No big
deal, but there are also sets of Fireballs that fly up from the lava around
most of the bottomless pits as well. Their deal is that they fly off the top of
the screen in sets of three, then begin slowly falling down. Each Fireball can
either fall to the left or the right, and there is no way of telling which way
they will go until they begin descent. Either way, these areas aren't that hard
if you have good timing for when to jump. Another thing to note is that you
should _not_ use the Ice Slasher to try to take out Fireballs. All it will do
is freeze them in place. It doesn't kill them, and you'll be wasting the energy
on your Ice Slasher. Stick to the Plasma Beam for them. The downside if that you
can use Ice Slasher to freeze the Fire Columns. It makes getting past them much
easier, but you also have no way of taking down the Fireballs if the need calls
for it. Personally, I think that you should stick with the Plasma Beam in the
event that you absolutely need to kill a Fireball or two in your travels.
Go up to the first set of many such traps in this level. Wait for the Fireballs
to fly out of the lava, then jump over to the platform with the Fire Column
coming up on a regular basis. Make sure to stay on the left side of that
platform so that you don't get hit by the Fire Column and fly off. When the
Fire Column goes down, quickly jump to the platform with the ladder on it. At
this point, the Fireballs should begin coming down. Avoid them if you can, kill
a few if you must, then climb the ladder and move on. In case you're wondering
about the large Energy Pellet, the way to reach it is to equip the Ice Slasher,
climb in the ladder, and freeze the Fire Column while it is at its highest
point. From there, scale the ladder and use the Fire Column as a platform to
reach the Energy Pellet. Only do this if you are in dire need of health, which
you shouldn't be this close to the beginning of the level. I would avoid it
altogether to avoid trouble myself. You'll have plenty of opportunity to heal
later on.
Case and point, look at the next area. It's nothing more than two Fire Columns
guarding small Energy Pellets. If you need them, then equip the Ice Slasher and
go to business. When the lower Fire Column goes down, quickly jump on the
platform and collect the small Energy Pellet. From there, wait for the Fire
Column to be around halfway to its peak, then freeze it with the Ice Slasher.
Jump on the frozen Fire Column, then quickly turn around and freeze the second
Fire Column. Jump over it, then collect the second Energy Pellet. If you're
fast enough, you can use the second frozen Fire Column as a stepping stone to
get to the ladder. If not, then drop down to the bottom when you have a chance
and use the safer path to reach the ladder. It should obviously be noted that
you should only go through the process of getting the Energy Pellets if you
actually need them. Either way, climb the ladder and move on to the next area.
The next area can be somewhat tricky, especially if you take the low route. But
let's avoid the low route altogether, shall we? See that high platform with the
Weapon Capsules? That's your goal here. To get there, you must freeze the first
Fire Column with the Ice Slasher, then use it as a stepping stone. But you
cannot simply freeze the Fire Column at its highest point. You have to freeze
it _just_ before it gets there. If done correctly, you should barely be able to
jump onto the Fire Column. And from there, you should barely be able to jump to
the high platform where you can completely recharge Ice Slasher with the Weapon
Capsules.
If you take the low route, it is recommended that you use the Ice Slasher to
freeze both Fire Columns at their low points. This makes the jump between them
much easier. From there, wait in between the Fire Columns for them to begin
moving again. Once they do, make a small jump to get into the ledge past the
second Fire Column while it is at its lowest point. The problem with the low
route is the first Fire Beam. It is virtually impossible to avoid, and you will
most likely take damage from it. From there, you have no choice but to use your
temporary invincibility to jump on the small block in midair, and subsequently
jump to the next ledge above the second Fire Beam. It seems simple enough, but
jumping on that tiny block in midair isn't the easiest task in the world.
Furthermore, if you take more than one hit in this section, you may very well
fall into the bottomless pit and get stuck starting over from the beginning of
the level. For this reason alone, the high road is safer. But even then, you
will still have to deal with the second Fire Beam. Drop down to its level, then
study the Fire Beam's pattern. When you have it down, jump on the
aforementioned midair block and wait there. The Fire Beam will appear just
above your head. When it goes away, quickly jump up to the platform.
As you go right, you will encounter another Fire Beam. You should know the
pattern by now, so get ready to jump. Start your jump to the midair block below
the Fire Beam before the Fire Beam even goes away. If timed correctly, the Fire
Beam will disappear from underneath you before you land. Use this extra split
second wisely and jump to the platform before the Fire Beam nails you. From
there, there are two more Fire Columns to deal with. Don't bring out the Ice
Slasher for this, because they are set in an easy pattern. Jump over the first
Fire Column as it comes down, then simply jump over the second one in the same
manner. This will cause you to drop down into the little ledge, but that's
fine. Jump out and drop down to the ladder. Jump over and collect the Energy
Pellets if need be, then go down the ladder to the next area.
The next room symbolizes the faster pace that the level is about to take. Drop
down to the floor, but make sure you are to the left of the Fire Column below
you. From there, quickly move left past the second Fire Column and to the
ladder. You will avoid all of the Fireballs this way.
The next area is a gigantic run through more of the same thing, only now you
have the lava to deal with. You die if you fall in, but don't worry too much.
If you happen to fall in, you start from the beginning of this area, not the
beginning of the level. There is also the added bonus of Mega Man Anniversary
Collection giving you the option of having five lives to start with, so there's
one gigantic headache out the window =)
Okay, let's do this. As you drop off the ladder, make sure you are on the left
side of the platform below you. You don't want to get killed by the Fire
Column. Ignore the Fireballs for now, and just concentrate on moving past the
two Fire Columns to the platform with the ladder. Do so, and then avoid the
Fireballs as they come down. If this is impossible, then use jumpshots to kill
any Fireballs before they are able to hit you on that platform. It's a very
small platform, and one hit can knock you off of it. When the going is clear,
climb up to the safer part of the platform via the ladder. Once there, do _not_
go off and jump yet. Fireballs will likely knock you out of midair. Wait for
them to fall down to you, deal with them accordingly, _then_ jump. But before
doing so, wait for the next set of Fireballs to go flying off the top of the
screen. From there, you will have plenty of time to make the jump across
the platforms.
The next set of platforms can be a real pain if you take it slowly, so you
obviously want to be fast here. Ignore the Fireballs altogehter, then drop
down to the platform below you. Make sure you stay on the left side of it to
avoid having the Fire Column knock you off. From this point, you need to be
fast. Jump across the platforms when the first Fire Column goes down, then
jump to the platform with the ladder once the second Fire Column goes down. If
you did this fast enough, the Fireballs should just now be coming down. Deal
with them accordingly, them climb the ladder to the next area.
The next section looks like it's impossible to get through without taking
damage, simply because it's impossible to run through the Fire Waves fast
enough. But thankfully, there is a cheap way out. Climb the first ladder, then
bust out the Magnet Beam. Go all the way left, make a small jump, and place a
Magnet Beam on the wall. Use it as a stepping stone to get to the ladder, then
climb up and out of the screen.
Hey look, the Bullet Bill is back!. At any rate, begin climbing the pseudo-
staircase while keeping up the regular stream of Plasma Beam Shots. At the top,
equip the Thunder Beam. There are three platforms ahead, all guarded by Spike
Bots. Deploy your Thunder Beam and go take some names. Once at the bottom
platform, head right. Ignore the Fireballs completely and jump across the
platforms as if they weren't even there. Isn't it odd that at the very end of
this level, we see lava pits that AREN'T guarded by Fire Columns?
Next up is the door that leads to Fire Man's room, which is guarded by two Fire
Columns. If you're low on health, now is the time to get energized. The
Fireballs spawn forever, so head left a little bit. Let them respawn all they
wish, and kill them three at a time. You have a large platform to work with, so
this should come as cake to you after having gotten this far. Use the Fireballs
to charge Ice Slasher and Mega Man's energy bar to the maximum. When you're
good and ready, bust out the Ice Slasher. Freeze the first Fire Column guarding
the door while it is halfway to its peak, but take care not to freeze the
second Fire Column. The reason for this is that the two Fire Columns follow a
backwards pattern, so it's pretty hard to go through both of them without
freezing the first one. After the first is frozen, wait for the gap in the
second Fire Column's pattern and go through the door.
Oh look, more Turrets. There are four altogether, and they all appear on the
ceiling one at a time. You know what to do by now. Stand seven panels away so
that they never fire upon you and kill them with whatever weapon you desire. I
recommend the Rolling Cutter myself. After you clear out the four Turrets, the
final door appears. Bust out the Ice Slasher and get ready to kick some ass.
Boss: Fire Man
Weapon: Fire Storm
Weakness: Ice Slasher
Difficulty: 6/10
Fire Man isn't all that hard, but he can take you down if you try to get
technical with him. His pattern is that he fires a weapon at you periodically
called the Fire Storm. Every time you fire a weapon at him, he counters with
Fire Storm. The catch to his counter is that a little flame also appears under
Mega Man that does quite a bit of damage if it hits. The Fire Storm itself is
also quite fast, and difficult to avoid. And because Fire Man never jumps,
there is the added problem that you must jump over all Fire Storms if you
choose to try avoiding them all.
The solution to all of this madness? Simple. Don't try avoiding anything in the
first place. From the beginning of the battle, come out with your guns blazing
and let Fire Man have it over and over again with the Ice Slasher. While you're
doing this, make sure that the only movement you take is a consistent push
towards Fire Man. This allows you avoid all of the flames on the ground, and
thus make the battle nothing more than a stat test. If you go into the battle
with full health and fire Ice Slasher without a care in the world, then Fire
Man's damage will decrease at twice the rate yours does. He _will_ go down
before you do, and you may be amazed to see that a battle that could
potentially have been pure hell winds up being somewhat easy in the end as you
finish with at least half of your health come the end of it all.
After the fight, the Fire Storm is all yours. It follows the exact same pattern
as the Ice Slasher, with one notable difference. A singular fireball surrounds
Mega Man and offers a sort of shield when the Fire Storm is used. This serves
as two bullets for the price of one, and both do equal damage.
It's easy enough to see what the Fire Storm itself does, but the shield is a
different matter entirely. Despite the appearance, the fireball that surrounds
Mega Man is singular. This means that Mega Man is _not_ untouchable while using
the Fire Storm. A lot of enemies coming at him at the same time can still cause
damage, while you will see in some of the Dr. Wily levels later in the game.
But that being said, Fire Storm is still one of the best weapons Mega Man has
in the game. Firing off a shot and being somewhat protected by fireballs that
do the exact same damage as the Fire Storm itself is quite an interesting item.
And like the Thunder Beam, Fire Storm is bang for your buck. All of the
features that come with the attack despite the cheap cost of use is a perfect
fit.
=== vii. Dr. Wily Stage 1 ===
Before going here, make sure you have the Magnet Beam from Elec Man's stage.
Got it? Good.
The first part of the first Wily stage lets you know that you're in for a very
rough time. You have not one, not two, but THREE Hoppers to deal with. You're
well aware of how to deal with them by now, but if you get hit by all three of
them, it's over. Even worse is the fact that you can't just run backwards until
you take them down either, simply because they'll only respawn. You have to
hope that you're able to get past all three of them while only being hit two
times or less. Thankfully, the third one jumps from off of a landing above you,
so he shouldn't be too bad.
A cheap way to get past them would be to make a Magnet Beam staircase, wait for
a Hopper to get _under_ you, then jump to its right. It's cheap, but it works.
No matter what you do here, the end result is Mega Man standing in front of
some Super Arm Blocks. Bust out the Super Arm and get past them. Next up are
three Fire Columns. The only way to get past them is with the Ice Slasher, so
equip it. The _only_ way that you'll be able to get past the first two Fire
Columns is if you freeze them while they are either on level ground with the
platform to their left or one panel below. The third Fire Column doesn't need
to be frozen at all. You can simply wait for it to go down, then jump onto the
ladder.
The next screen is devoid of enemies, but you still have a ton of spikes to
worry about. Climb all the way up the ladder. You can't reach the Energy Pellet
from your current position, so drop down onto the narrow platform. If you need
to reach the Energy Pellet (which you probably do after dealing with those
three Hoppers), bust out the Magnet Beam. Move _VERY_ slightly and _VERY_
slowly to your left while on that small platform. If you move too fast, you'll
fall off the platform and die. After moving to the left a tad, face Mega Man to
the right, make a small jump, and place a Magnet Beam in the air. Jump onto it,
then place another Magnet Beam in the wall to your right. From the second
Magnet Beam, you'll be able to reach the Energy Pellet. Afterwards, drop back
down to the small platform. Switch back to the Plasma Beam, then jump over and
climb the ladder.
Climb the ladder as fast as you can in the next area. If you're quick enough,
you'll easily be able to get the jump on the three Screws before they get
close. Continue to the right, cap any Screws that are dumb enough to get in
your way, and take notice of the Energy Pellet above you. There is one way, and
one way only, to reach the Energy Pellet. Bust out the Magnet Beam, and create
one below the Super Arm Blocks guarding the entrance to the Energy Pellet. JUST
before the Magnet Beam disappears, jump. Pause the game, switch to the Super
Arm, go back to the game, and grab the Super Arm Block guarding the hallway.
It's a cinch to get the Energy Pellet from there.
It's a real pain in the ass to pull that off, and I personally recommend not
bothering with it in the first place. On, you'll waste a ton of energy on your
Magnet Beam if you keep failing, and two, you have chances to heal later on.
No matter what you choose, get the three Super Arm Blocks guarding the exit
from the area out of your way with the Super Arm, and descend the ladder there
to move on.
The next screen is the perfect reason why you don't need to kill yourself going
after the Energy Pellet in the previous screen. This area is very small,
features a lone respawning Bullet Bill, and an area at the bottom that makes
healing a breeze. But first thing's first. As soon as you enter this screen,
run left and drop to the second level. When the Bullet Bill passes over your
head, make two jumps across the next two areas over the spikes. From there,
kill the Bullet Bill, then jump over and drop down to the hallway at the
bottom. Run all the way left, and wait. From this spot, you can kill as many
Bullet Bills as you damned well please until your weapons and energy are full.
After you're had your fill, go down the ladder and into the next area.
NOOOOOO!! Anything but these damned things. Those damned platforms from Ice
Man's stage are back, and even though you don't have any glitches to worry
about, you have spikes on the ceiling and the floor. If the platforms go too
high, you die. If their bullets knock you off, you die. And thanks to another
feature that hadn't been implemented yet, you don't have a few seconds of
invincibility when you touch the spikes. You die on contact.
But despite all of this, it isn't as bad as Ice Man's stage. Each platform's
area of confinement overlaps the platform next to it, so reaching each
platform isn't too bad. The problem comes from the spikes. All of the platforms
can and will go high enough for you to die. The hard way through here is to do
nothing but wait on the platforms and jump across them all, while the easy way
is the Magnet Beam. Assuming you didn't spend all of your Magnet Beam energy
avoiding the Hoppers from the beginning of the level, that is =)
No matter what you choose to do, you will find that getting to the other side
of this area is far easier than Ice Man's stage. Trust me. On the other side,
you will see two Weapon Capsules next to a ladder. Grab the Weapon Capsules,
climb the ladder, then drop back down. Oh look, the Weapon Capsules are back.
Use this Weapon Capsule regeneration trick to recharge all of your weapons,
ESPECIALLY the Magnet Beam.
When you're finally ready to move on to the next room, you will see the one
room within all of Dr. Wily's levels that is flat-out impossible to get past
without the Magnet Beam. You should be an expert on Magnet Beam use by this
point, so start using it to create a staircase that gets you past the column on
the right. All you need to do is stick a Magnet Beam in the wall, turn around,
stick a Magnet Beam in the wall behind you, jump on it, turn around, stick a
Magnet Beam in the wall, and so on and so on and so on until you reach the top
of the passageway. Jump down to the area under the ladder.
Stand in the middle of the wall on the left and the second wall in the room.
Without jumping, you can reach the ladder with five Magnet Beams. With jumping,
you can reach it with three if done correctly. If for whatever reason you screw
this up, the little hole in this room won't kill you if you fall through it.
It brings you down to the area below this one with the regenerating Weapon
Capsules, so in the worst case scenario, you can always reload the energy on
the Magnet Beam and try again. When you finally reach the ladder, climb up, go
right, and prepare for the hardest boss in the game to this point.
Boss: Yellow Devil
Weakness: Thunder Beam
Difficulty: 8/10
Of all the bosses in this game, Yellow Devil draws the most complaints. His
main (and only) attack causes as much damage to you as Thunder Beam causes to
him, and that's not even half the story.
When Yellow Devil first enters the room, he doesn't simply appear. He shows up
in parts that fly across the screen and fuse together at the other end to form
the Yellow Devil itself. When all the pieces come together, Yellow Devil fires
a shot at you from its eye, and then it flies across the screen in sections
again. When they all come together, Yellow Devil fires at you, and so on and
so forth. The problem in this fight, and what generates so many complaints, is
the fact that when Yellow Devil is flying across the screen in parts, the parts
themselves are very difficult to avoid and cause as much damage as his main
attack does. If you're having problems avoiding the parts, you can find
yourself taking two or three hits before being able to counter. The entire key
to this battle is avoiding Yellow Devil as he flies across the screen. If you
can do that, then the battle becomes considerably easier than it was at first
glance.
Thankfully, you have one advantage. Yellow Devil always flies across the screen
in the exact same pattern. Once you learn how to avoid all of the flying parts,
you'll know how to avoid them once and for all. I'll do the best I can to
explain how the pattern works, but in the end, learning to avoid Yellow Devil
takes a lot of practice. Reading this guide can't make anyone an expert on what
to do; you have to get in there and learn how to avoid him yourself sooner or
later.
With that said, here goes. Yellow Devil is five panels in height. He flies
across the screen one "block" at a time, but some of the blocks are so close
together that you need to make very tricky jumps to avoid them all. Another
thing to remember is that Yellow Devil is six panels in width. The early blocks
in the pattern come from the back panels of Yellow Devil's width, meaning that
you have more time to react to them. It's the later blocks in the pattern ---
the blocks that barely give you any time to react whatsoever, in other words
--- that cause all of the problems. The following list lists all of the blocks,
and the height with which they come in at. The only blocks that you need to
jump over are blocks listed at Panel 1 or Panel 2; Mega Man is two panels
high in height, and only these such blocks can actually hit him. Everything
else passes over his head.
Block 1 - Panel 2
Block 2 - Panel 3
Block 3 - Panel 1
Block 4 - Panel 4
Block 5 - Panel 3
Block 6 - Panel 2
Block 7 - Panel 4
Block 8 - Panel 5
Block 9 - Panel 1
Block 10 - Panel 2
Block 11 - Panel 3
Block 12 - Panel 5
Block 13 - Panel 4
Block 14 - Panel 2
Block 15 - Panel 4
Block 16 - Panel 3
Block 17 - Panel 5
Block 18 - Panel 1
Block 19 - Panel 3
NOTE: 1 is a panel lowest to the ground, while 5 is a panel highest from the
ground.
Yellow Devil is a big enemy, as you can see. The attack that he executes after
all of his parts come together isn't nearly as difficult to deal with as
successfully avoiding all 19 of his parts on a consistent basis. The beginning
of the pattern is easy enough to avoid, as all you need to do is jump over the
first block that appears, slip under the second, and then jump over the third.
Most of the pattern isn't really that bad. The part that gives everyone
problems is the section featuring blocks 9, 10, and 11. You have to jump over
the first one with the smallest jump possible, then jump over the second one
with a jump small enough to get you under the last block in the sequence. It
sounds easy, but the only way to clear that final jump is to jump WITH Block
10's trajectory, not against it, then turn Mega Man the other way to avoid
taking damage. If you get this one part down, then the rest of the pattern will
feel much easier.
That leads into my next point, come to think of it. Don't ever take a full jump
in this fight. You're guaranteed to get your ass kicked that way, especially in
the middle section. Furthermore, when Yellow Devil is on the screen, make sure
you're looking at him so that you know where the blocks are coming from. And
finally, even though this is common sense, stay as far back as you can. But
don't go too far back, else you'll take damage from the fusing Yellow Devil
behind you.
When you have all of that down, all that's left to do is incorporate causing
damage. After Yellow Devil fuses, wait a split second, jump, and fire a Thunder
Beam right into his eye. His shot will miss you if you time it correctly, and
all you need to do is shoot him six more times to win. Have fun.
=== viii. Dr. Wily Stage 2 ===
The Yellow Devil fight may be out of the way, but you aren't in the clear yet.
The next level is another drawn-out pain in the ass, and the boss here is
nothing short of an epic dogfight.
But first thing's first. Equip the Fire Storm and move right. Oh, LOVELY.
Bladers. This section is all about dealing with Bladers while jumping across
gaps, and the only way you'll do this painlessly is with the shield that the
Fire Storm gives. Bust out the Fire Storm before the first Blader dives at you,
then jump the gap. At the jump's apex, let loose the Fire Storm once again. If
timed properly, the next two Bladers will go down with ease. So long as you
continue moving right, you'll only have to deal with two more sets of Bladers,
and none of them will encounter you mid-jump. On the other side of this is
solid ground, a few spikes that you couldn't reach unless you tried, and some
Weapon Capsules. Bear in mind that there is a two panel wide hole right in the
middle of this floor. If you want to reach the Weapon Capsules, you'll have to
jump over it.
NOTE: Ignore the Energy Pellet in the section with the Bladers. It's on a very
small platform, and Mega Man loves to slide off the other side after picking it
up.
After falling through the floor, you're thrust into a rematch with Cut Man.
This game began the tradition of fighting the robot masters all over again,
though Capcom didn't give you a choice in this game. You have to fight all of
the robot masters in a set order. Cut Man is about as big a joke as it gets,
although you don't have Super Arm Blocks to throw at him this time. But all
that does is essentially give you an even wider space to work with than before.
Bust out the Plasma Beam and get to work on his sorry ass. Try not to be
careless, though. Unlike other Mega Man games, you don't get an Energy Pellet
after the fight. When Cut Man is disposed of once and for all, go all the way
left and drop through the floor into the next area.
This area looks exactly the same as the beginning of the level, but don't
worry. No Bladers this time. All you have to deal with are two Turrets. Killing
them is a waste of time, so simply jump past the both of them while they are
sitting in the ground. Again, ignore the Energy Pellet here. This game is so
damned glitchy that you may very well fall off the other side of the platform
after picking it up. Only go down there if you are in absolute dire straits
health-wise. The easiest way to kill the Turret guarding the pellet is with
either the Thunder Beam or Hyper Bomb. Either way, get to the solid ground on
the other side of the two Turrets.
Make ABSOLUTE SURE that you equip the Rolling Cutter before going too far to
the right. You're about to fight Elec Man again, and being unprepared for him
is nothing short of suicide. When you're ready, go through the fake floor just
to the left of the two Weapon Capsules. If you need the Capsules, bear in mind
that the fake floor is two panels wide and _just_ to the left of the Weapon
Capsules. When you're ready, drop down into Elec Man's room.
This battle with Elec Man is a little easier than the last one, simply because
there aren't any Super Arm Blocks getting in your way. Right when the fight
starts, go left and fire a Rolling Cutter. After it hits Elec Man, run to the
right and jump. With any luck, Elec Man's Thunder Beam will pass right under
you. From here, all you need to do is hit Elec Man twice more with the Rolling
Cutter to take him down. You might eat a Thunder Beam in the process, but if
you're fast enough, you'll take one hit at the absolute most.
When the fight is over, go through the hole in the floor on the far left. After
falling through it, you will come across yet another area that looks like the
beginning of the level. You'll have to deal with Poppers for the first time
since very early in the game. They follow the same pattern as before, so there
is nothing to be overly concerned about here. When the first Popper jumps up,
jump to the left and over all of its fragments, then across the gap quickly
afterwards. On the next platform, you'll have to avoid two Poppers, and after
jumping from off of that platform, you have two more easily-avoided Poppers to
get past before reaching solid ground once more. To the far right is the ladder
out of the area.
Upon dropping to the next area, you'll see three Suzies that pose no threat
whatsoever. Drop down to the Suzy that is guarding the extra life and take it
down. To reach the extra life, you'll need to use the Magnet Beam. Make a quick
jump, fire a small Magnet Beam, and jump to the extra life. The safe way to get
back is to wait until the Magnet Beam disappears, then jump back to the solid
ground uncontested. From there, bust out the Thunder Beam, wait for the bottom
two Suzies to get within the same vertical plane, then unleash hell to kill
them both at the same time. When that's over, drop down to the next area. Once
there, you come across three more Suzies that are easily dealt with by the
Thunder Beam.
Before dropping down to the next screen, make sure that you hang onto the
ladder. In the next screen, stay there until you see a break in the Suzy
pattern, then drop down and fire a Thunder Beam to the left. In the next area,
drop down as fast as you can, run right, and fire a Thunder Beam. This should
kill all four Pea Shooters before they even think to cause you harm. When they
are disposed of, go grab the Weapon Capsule on the far left before going to the
next screen.
Another screen, another group of enemies easily disposed of by the Thunder
Beam. Drop down, kill the two Suzies on the left, then drop down and kill the
Suzy/Pea Shooter combo. Take special note of this area, however. If the boss
in the next room kills you, you start in this screen right between the Suzy and
the Pea Shooter. In the event that this occurs, run right, jump over the Suzy,
and simply drop down to the last level. Before you go down the final ladder,
TAKE OFF THE THUNDER BEAM. I recommend equipping either the Plasma Beam or the
Fire Storm for the next fight, because all of your other weapons are virtually
useless.
Boss: Mega Man Clone
Weakness: None
Difficulty: 10/10
Dr. Wily himself can't come close to being as hard as this fight is. Your evil
twin is a diabolical lunatic. Whatever weapon you use, he uses. None of your
weapons cause more than a bar or two of damage, while his weapons all cause a
considerably larger amount of damage than your counterparts. He's every bit as
fast as you are, and when he jumps, he jumps a great distance horizontally, not
vertically, and causes a absolute ton of damage to you should he touch you.
This fight is a an absolute pain in the ass. It's the hardest fight in the game
by far, and there are simply no cheap ways to beat him. It's like a battle
between Samus and Ridley; two characters will simply beat the absolute crap out
of each other until someone dies.
So, whatever is a weaker robot to do? For one, you need to make sure that
you're at full health before going into this fight. Your clone's weapons aren't
necessarily the problem; it's the damage that you take whenever he touches you.
And thanks to the fact that it's damned near impossible to go over or under him
without taking damage, you need a strategy that will keep him away from you.
There is one weapon, and one weapon only, that is able to do this: Fire Storm.
Fire Storm won't keep your clone away from you per say, but its shield will
cause damage to your clone before it can touch you. Not only that, but in the
event that your clone gets anywhere near you, one of three things will happen.
Either you'll get hit by his shield, he gets hit by your shield, or both. So
long as you keep the Fire Storm's shield up in this fight, you effectively
nullify all damage taken from your clone running into you. And anyone who has
gotten their ass whipped in this fight knows that that is a TON of damage.
With that taken care of, the next strategy is damaging your clone to the point
of death. As soon as the fight starts, your clone will immediately fire a shot
of whatever you have equipped at you. The Fire Storm is easy to avoid, so go in
with it equipped. From here, the whole key is dealing damage faster than you
can take it. With the Fire Storm's shield, your clone will take damage whenever
he's dumb enough to get close to you. As for when you're far away from him,
there is a nice pattern that will put him to rest. Shoot a Fire Storm while
standing on the ground. If he jumps over it, shoot another Fire Storm. It will
hit him when he lands. If your clone is backing away from you to the point of
hugging the wall behind him, shoot a short-hopped Fire Storm at him. And
finally, if your clone is running at you from far away, take a small jump and
blast a Fire Storm towards him. He'll either run right under it or jump right
into it. In the event of him jumping into the blast, do the exact same thing
again. With any luck, your clone will be dumb enough to jump into three or four
Fire Storms in a row. There's also a really cheap trick that you can pull.
If you're lucky enough to back the clone into the corner, keep firing at him.
If you're quick enough, he'll get hit by your shield over and over again until
he either dies or jumps at you. It's cheap, but it works.
When all of this is factored in with the fact that you'll barely take any
damage at all from your clone running into you, the fight becomes considerably
easier. He should go down well before you do. The only problem left comes in
the event of Fire Storm running out of weapon energy. If this happens, he
should be close to dead. The weapon of choice here is the Plasma Beam, believe
it or not. The Hyper Bomb is useless, the Thunder Beam is suicide, the Rolling
Cutter is too slow (and too hard to avoid when used against you), and the Ice
Slasher causes no damage whatsoever. Even if you hit your clone with it, it
causes NO DAMAGE. I swear, everything related to Ice Man is glitched in this
game. You're stuck with the Plasma Beam by default, but considering that he
should almost be dead by this point, it isn't too bad. Just avoid him the best
you can and keep the shots firing. But considering that the Fire Storm is the
most economical weapon you have when it comes to damage caused versus cost, you
should like never have this problem, especially if your clone is effectively
hurting himself by running into the shield all the time.
When you're finally able to take him down, take a breather and pat yourself on
the back. It's all downhill from here.
=== ix. Dr. Wily Stage 3 ===
Compared to what you've already gone through, the home stretch of this game
shouldn't seem too bad. This level is fairly short, and consists of you going
through a sewer-like level. Right when it starts, move left a little. Kill the
two Suzies with the Plasma Beam, then wait for the third Suzy on the screen to
move left. When it does, jump over it and get as far right as you can. You'll
land on a small ledge on the next screen once you fall into it, and this helps
prevent the enemies from getting the jump on you once you're there.
Bust out the Rolling Cutter, jump to the left, hug the wall, and fire it. This
will kill the Turret and give you a lot of freedom down below when dealing with
the Suzies. Kill the one on your level however you please, then bust out the
Thunder Beam. When the two Suzies below you are within the same vertical plane,
kill them. Jump as far to the left as you can, then drop down to the next
screen.
The next area is exactly the same as the last one, only in reverse. Kill the
Turret with a mid-jump Rolling Cutter again, then bust out the Thunder Beam to
deal with all of the Suzies down below. Jump as far right as you can when going
to the next screen, and get ready for more of the same. Kill the Turret on the
right with the Thunder Beam, then use a mid-jump Thunder Beam to kill the
Turret on the left. As for the two Suzies, you're a Thunder Beam expert. You
know what to do =)
In the next area, you're finally given something new. It's nothing but one
gigantic hallway. As you go right, water fills the hallway and you are carried
along by its current. Stand still and keep a steady stream of Plasma Beam shots
going. You will soon be greeted by a flood of Flying Penguins and Bullet Bills,
but so long as you keep the shots firing, they'll all go down as if they
weren't even there. The whole key is to stand still. At the end of this
hallway is the level's boss. Short level, wasn't it?
Boss: Protobubbleman
Weakness: Super Arm
Difficulty: 6/10
This is the part of the guide where I mention the fact that Meowthnum1 kicks an
absolute ton of ass. He came up with the name Protobubbleman, not me, and he
was nice enough to let me use it. Meowthnum1 was also nice enough to let me use
a great deal of the names listed in this guide, so go yell at him if anything
sounds lame :P
Protobubbleman is above average at best when it comes to difficulty. His
pattern is that he comes from one of the three holes on either the left, top,
or right sides of the room, then begins encircling the room while shooting
bubbles at you. You need to "kill" Protobubbleman seven times before he goes
down once and for all, and thankfully, you have four Super Arm Blocks at your
disposal in this fight. That's four deaths right then and there, but what about
the other three?
When the fight starts, do NOT use the Super Arm. Stick to the Plasma Beam. It
only takes ten shots from the Plasma Beam to take down one part of
Protobubbleman, so the first three times you take him on, that's the weapon of
choice. You'll notice that every time you take down one of Protobubbleman's
bubbles, the next version of him is faster than the last. If you use the
Plasma Beam to take down the first three, you have four Super Arm Blocks at
your disposal for the final four, thus making this fight far more simple.
Another benefit to waiting to use the Super Arm Blocks is that you can use them
to jump over Protobubbleman in the event of being unable to land ten shots on
him all at once.
With this in mind, use the Plasma Beam to take down the first three versions of
Protobubbleman, then bust out the Super Arm to kill the final four of them. The
Super Arm phase of this fight is an absolute joke, simply because it takes one
block, and one block only, to kill one of the bubbles. And thanks to the Super
Arm Block's large area of effect, you would literally have to throw it the
wrong way to miss. The real battle comes in the first three forms, because the
final four are but a technicality.
=== x. Dr. Wily Stage 4 ===
Finally! The final level of the game. Don't think that there aren't any enemies
in the first room either, because six Watchers are about to show up. Dispose of
them with the same tactics that you have always used, then climb the ladder to
the next screen. The next screen looks like it's nothing but a small climb, but
as you may have guessed, more Watchers will show up. If you're fast enough,
then all you'll need to deal with are the three Watchers that come from the top
of the screen. If by some chance you get hit, wait a split second, then press
Up on the D Pad to catch the ladder again. When you're done with this area,
finish your climb up.
Don't even think about using the Super Arm here. Bust out the Magnet Beam,
plant two beams in the wall of Super Arm Blocks, and jump to the top of them.
Make sure you land on the ledge without touching the Weapon Capsule so that
you'll be able to switch to whatever weapon needs charging the most. After
collecting the Weapon Capsule, bust out the Rolling Cutter and continue into
the hallway plastered with pictures of Guts Man. The only way to reach most of
the Turrets that litter this hallway is with the Rolling Cutter, thanks to the
irregular ground. The first four Turrets all lie on the ceiling, so do what
you must and kill them with the Rolling Cutter. As you continue right, you'll
see two Turrets on the same vertical plane. Jump up, fire a Rolling Cutter at
the top Turret, then pull Mega Man back, stand six panels away from the bottom
Turret and fire a Rolling Cutter upon it. If done correctly, neither Turret
come out to shoot at you. Go right, kill the final Turret, then climb the
ladders.
It may look like this next area will suck, but it isn't half as bad as the
platforms in Guts Man's stage. One, there is only one platform with one
conveyor belt hole. Two, you have the Magnet Beam this time around. Jump on the
platform, and just before it reaches the conveyor belt hole, jump onto the tiny
platform lying in midair. If you're quick enough, you should be able to jump
back onto the platform from there. If not, then wait up there as long as you
need to. When you're able to jump on the platform, ignore the ladder and ride
it to the right. There is an extra life and a lone Yashichi just itching to be
taken. Bear in mind that you can't ride the platform all the way right, or you
will fall off. Don't worry, the jumps here aren't nearly as difficult as
jumping off of the tiny platform from a few sentences ago. When you have your
goodies, climb the ladder up to the solid ground, bust out the Fire Storm, and
enter the warp.
NOTE: The cheap way past the platform is the Magnet Beam. As the conveyor belt
hole approaches, fire a long Magnet Beam (hold down the fire button) and jump
on it. You can easily reach the ladder without the aid of the platform this
way, and can drop down to get the extra life and Yashichi in a far easier
manner.
After you enter the warp, you're treated to a fight with Bomb Man. Now that you
have the Fire Storm, he's an even bigger joke than he was the first time. Avoid
the useless Hyper Bombs, run under him whenever you're able (which will be
often thanks to his habit of jumping to the ceiling all the time), and unleash
Fire Storms upon him until he drops. Bomb Man is the first leg of the boss
gauntlet, and when you enter the warp again, you'll be thrust into a battle
with the one and only Fire Man.
Make sure you have the Ice Slasher equipped before entering the fight with Fire
Man. He isn't hard, but thanks to the fact that his attacks are difficult to
avoid, he can leave you in a bad way for the next two battles. Remember that
when Fire Man fires the Fire Storm at you, the Fire Storm pauses in front of
Fire Man just before it gets let loose. And whenever Fire Man gets hit, he
unloads a Fire Storm accompanies by a small flame on the ground. He's exactly
the same as he was before, but you'll need to avoid as many attacks as you can
if you hope to survive the next two battles. Of course, if you're at full
health when entering the fight, finesse is useless. Firing the Ice Slasher upon
him as fast as you can ensures that you'll have at least half of your health
left before he goes down, which should be more than enough.
When the battle with Fire Man is over, equip the Thunder Beam and enter the
warp. Ice Man is next, and he's still a pansy. Right when the battle begins,
fire a short-hopped Thunder Beam at him. After it hits, fire another Thunder
Beam while standing still on the ground. From there, jump through the second
and third Ice Slashers and unleash a third Thunder Beam on your way to landing
on the ground. Three hits from the Thunder Beam is all it takes to bring Ice
Man down. After he's dead, bust out the Hyper Bomb and get ready for the final
leg of the gauntlet, Guts Man.
Without the Super Arm Blocks in the room, you'll find that Guts Man is far more
difficult to deal with. For one, you don't have any height advantage on him.
This makes jumping over his Super Arm Blocks an absolute pain in the ass, and
thanks to being able to heal between boss fights, you're already at a
disadvantage health-wise going into this fight. If that wasn't bad enough, Guts
Man is far more difficult to hit with the Hyper Bombs this time around due to
him having more space to work with.
To avoid dying, you cannot jump until _JUST BEFORE_ Guts Man lands on the
ground after jumping. One split second too soon, and you'll be caught in an
earthquake regardless. And even if you do get caught in an earthquake upon
landing, you can still let loose a Hyper Bomb while in the air. The entire key
to this battle is hitting Guts Man with three Hyper Bombs before he's able to
catch you too many times, because thanks to your depleted health, it won't be
hard for him to do. If you're able to avoid those earthquakes, the battle
becomes much easier. If not, you'll die quite a number of times before finally
managing to take him down. It sucks that one of the hardest fights in the game
comes down to whether or not the enemy is dumb enough to get hit with the worst
weapon in the game three times, but what can you do? Either way, good luck. You
might need a little.
After finally taking down Guts Man, the warp takes you to a long, enemy-free
hallway with a Weapon Capsule at the end. Make sure the Fire Storm is full,
then enter the final door.
Boss: Dr. Wily Form 1
Weakness: Fire Storm
Difficulty: 6/10
The Fire Storm isn't the one and only way to take Wily down, but it works the
best. After listening to the creepy entrance music, you'll see Wily's saucer
fly onto the screen and eventually reveal a giant spaceship. The only way
you'll cause any damage to it is by shooting the little thing in front that
resembles a boxing glove. Wily's pattern is very simple in this fight. The
front of the ship rapidly fires a ton of bullets at you in an arc, and the only
way to avoid them is to run back and forth underneath them. As for causing
damage, it's simple. When at a distance, pound the ship with Fire Storm. When
up close, jump next to the glove and let loose the Fire Storm anyway. The
shield will hit Wily's ship multiple times for an insane amount of damage.
After doing this a couple of times, the ship goes down and the game finally
ends.
..or does it? After taking down Wily, you have to fight a second form of
his ship. Fun.
Boss: Dr. Wily Form 2
Weakness: None
Difficulty: 7/10
What? The final form of Wily only having a difficulty rating of 7?
Well, it's true. Wily's final form in this game is quite simple to take down,
at least in comparison to the robot masters. The trick is to stay as close to
the ship as possible. Go right under where the boxing glove used to be, in
other words. Dr. Wily will fire off attacks that travel in a circle while
going towards you, but if you're right under his ship, it's very difficult for
him to hit you. The strength of his attacks come with it being so hard to
avoid, not necessarily because the attack causes a lot of damage.
Well, if you're right under his ship, you can bypass the entire mess that is
avoiding the attacks altogether. Now, there are two points of origin from which
the attacks come from. One is where the boxing glove used to be, and one is
under the ship itself. When the attack comes from where the glove used to be,
it will harmlessly go right past you. When it comes from under the ship, it
flies right at you and is next to impossible to avoid. Thankfully, the attack
comes from the former 90% of the time. With this in mind, all that's left to do
is to cause some actual damage.
After each shot that Wily fires, you'll need to pop out from under the ship,
shoot him, then run back under the ship to your safe zone again. The suggested
weapon here is the Rolling Cutter, simply because it can hit Wily two times or
more per attack. After repeating this pattern over and over again, Wily goes
down in a surprisingly easy manner.
Enjoy the ending, because you damned well earned it. I've played and beaten
all eight Mega Man games in the central series, and I've always felt that this
one was one of the hardest.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
+ VI. Boss Flow Chart +
+++++++++++++++++++++++
This chart is similar to the weapon list from earlier in that it is listed in
the order in which this guide is written. You don't _have_ to follow the order
of this guide; it's only a recommendation. It should also be noted that the
weakness listings for the Mega Man Clone and both forms of Dr. Wily are also
mere recommendations.
+=================+================+=================+
| Boss Name | Weakness | Weapon Received |
+=================+================+=================+
| Bomb Man | Fire Storm | Hyper Bomb |
+-----------------+----------------+-----------------+
| Guts Man | Hyper Bomb | Super Arm |
+-----------------+----------------+-----------------+
| Cut Man | Super Arm | Rolling Cutter |
+-----------------+----------------+-----------------+
| Elec Man | Rolling Cutter | Thunder Beam |
+-----------------+----------------+-----------------+
| Ice Man | Thunder Beam | Ice Slasher |
+-----------------+----------------+-----------------+
| Fire Man | Ice Slasher | Fire Storm |
+-----------------+----------------+-----------------+
| Yellow Devil | Thunder Beam | None |
+-----------------+----------------+-----------------+
| Mega Man Clone | Fire Storm | None |
+-----------------+----------------+-----------------+
| Protobubbleman | Super Arm | None |
+-----------------+----------------+-----------------+
| Dr. Wily Form 1 | Fire Storm | None |
+-----------------+----------------+-----------------+
| Dr. Wily Form 2 | Rolling Cutter | None |
+-----------------+----------------+-----------------+
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ VII. Credits/Special Thanks +
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Last, but not least, the Credits section.
Capcom --- For making the game, maybe? The folks over there were also nice
enough to release Mega Man Anniversary Collection, which is the
only way that I was able to play the game in the first place.
CJayC --- He is one man, and happens to maintain the best site on the
internet. There is no way in hell that this is an easy task,
especially with the fact that GameFAQs is growing at an exponential
rate. I can't thank him enough for all of the hard work.
Meowthnum1 --- He was kind enough to let me use a great deal of the names that
you see in this guide. This guide would not be possible without
him, plain and simple. I can never thank you enough, my
friend =)
Heroic Mario --- Until Heroic Mario told me that the name of Mega Man's default
weapon was the Plasma Beam, I was referring to it as the Mega
Buster. I suck.
Board 8 --- You guys are a bunch of lunatics, but I don't know what I'd ever do
without you <3
arkenaga --- He pointed out that the links at the bottom were outdated. Thanks
a bundle =)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ VII. Disclaimer/Contact Information +
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This guide is copyrighted by UltimaterializerX, with all rights reserved, and
can not be reproduced in any way, shape, or form without expressed written
consent of the author.
This guide may only be posted at <www.gamefaqs.com> at the time of the release
of this document.
If you wish to e-mail me, my address is <
[email protected]>, just
like it says at the very beginning of the document. Feel free to contact me
with anything relevant. Furthermore, you can always catch me hanging around
one of the following places on www.gamefaqs.com:
The SCC Board -
http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/gentopic.php?board=584617
The SC Board -
http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/gentopic.php?board=8
SC stands for Summer Contest, by the way. I have wasted more time on that
board than on any other, so if you're randomly trying to catch me on gamefaqs,
that's your best bet. It's a social board with no topicality, so you can try
reaching me however you choose. If I'm not there, however, post something on
the SCC board. It's a guarantee that I'll see you sooner or later.
_______________________________________________________________________________
-Copyrighted 2004 UltimaterializerX, all rights reserved
-FIN-
