I AM VERY BAD AT MEGA MAN

Despite being a slow-to-act thinky simulation/RPG/puzzle gamer, I have decided to play through and beat all the Mega Man games on the legacy collections on the Switch, and also the challenges. I do not make good decisions.

[iamverybadatmegaman]

MM4 Remix 2

Well, that was certainly an adventure! I wasn’t expecting this challenge to take longer to beat than the Square Machine, but this was composed of some of this game’s harder platforming challenges, and my skill at Mega Man still leaves something to be desired. There were seven Robot Master stages (this time Pharaoh Man is the odd bot out) and... I wanna say four Wily/Cossack stages, and of course Dust Man’s stage was represented by the instadeath crushers.

Blasting a way through to the floor-touching crushers, loading up a charge, sliding in, firing, sliding back, killing the respawned Metall, charging and sliding again, remembering to jump before firing, going back and rekilling the Metall, and finally sliding under the crusher... It just takes so much time, and if you make one mistake you have to do the whole thing again. I think I spent five minutes here one night, just trying for the perfect run.

Which isn’t to say the other stages were all a breeze! There was a section of that one Cossack stage with the ice and the pitjumpers that I eventually just gave up on and Rush Jetted over the whole mess. There was a section of that one Wily stage with the underwater spikes that I only beat because I jumped into a Metall and used my invincibilty frames to clamber past the spikes. Swingy platforms, spiky blocks, whales... Still, I had fun! I enjoyed finding little unorthodox ways around problems, like freezing the ring miniboss while its rings were out, or Rush Marineing under the jumping fish in Toad Man’s stage. After this, I’m fighting the Cossack Catcher again.

[iamverybadatmegaman]

Square Machine

Oh God, the Square Machine. It slides in as three different parts, and if you don’t jump inside it before it forms you’re completely out of luck. Inside there’s a big red weak point at the top, which you access by jumping on these tiny moving platforms that you can easily get knocked off by the bullets the weak point shoots. It’s also placed just above shooting height at the top of the platforms’ range, but that’s not quite obvious at first glance. Every single thing about this boss is a giant pain in the robot ass.

But as I bashed my head against this brick wall over and over again, I learned how to work around that. If I get onto the platforms before the weak spot appears, I can be ready at the top when it spawns in. If I hammer the attack button while I’m up there, I can get off several hits in a round, and it’s not like the Dust Crusher is that energy intensive. Not having E cans made it rather harder than otherwise, but eventually I destroyed the Square Machine. Next up, another stage remix.

[iamverybadatmegaman]

MM4 Remix 1

This was a remix of sections from all the Robot Master stages (except for Toad Man, for some reason) and part of the first Cossack stage. Once I stopped trying to rewind the game whenever I mistimed a jump, it went well enough. Appearing platforms in Pharaoh Man’s stage, travelling over spikes by grasshopper in Bright Man’s stage, meeting Bin Bot in Skull Man’s stage... I really do appreciate this game’s art direction, I haven’t been able to tell the Robot Masters’ stages apart by sight since 1. Next up, a rematch with the Square Machine. Joy.

[iamverybadatmegaman]

Mega Man 4 Final Thoughts

I’d like to start out by giving a shout out to Bin Bot. Bin Bot showed up a lot throughout the game, but somehow I never found a space for them in the level summaries. That’s kind of a shame; Bin Bot is a bin with legs that shows up just before the hardest part of the level and gives me a big HP bauble. This one time I was trying to get a weapon energy refill, but when I switched to the weapon I wanted Bin Bot gave me an E can instead. Still, thanks, little buddy!

Bin Bot kinda sums out my favourite aspect of this game; its character. This game’s plot wasn’t nearly as organically worked into the gameplay as 3, but the personality of every individual Robot Master shines through in their stages. There were a few generic industrial stages, but they were all based around generic industrial robots, and the weirder bots went all out in their stage themes. I never thought this series would see me raiding a pyramid!

Gameplay-wise, this game felt a tad clunkier than 3. Most of it was just me either never charging up the buster or charging the buster when I didn’t need to, but seriously making the secret boss immune to a weapon I had no obvious place to recharge, after a boss gauntlet? I know 2 did that as well, but seriously? Also I’m kinda disappointed that the wire (you point it at the ceiling and it rappels you up!) and balloon weren’t dog upgrades. Rush Balloon would have been amazing.

In the end, I enjoyed this game, and I hope 5 has the personality of 4, the story of 3, and more than 2 seconds worth of Proto Man. I’ll move onto the challenges now.

[iamverybadatmegaman]

Wily Capsule

I fell down this long shaft, like the Alien stage from 2. There were no powerups, but there were some of these caterpillar bots that dropped from the ceiling. I blasted through them, and hit the boss battle. The room was completely dark, only lit up by Wily forming balls of energy to shoot me with as he moved around the stage. I think I was supposed to fire Pharaoh Shots at him in the brief second he was visible, but I just rewound and shot where he would show up. I got him down almost to zero, and then the Pharaoh Shot ran out of power. Tried to use the Buster, but it did nothing.

Turns out, the Capsule can only be damaged with the Pharaoh Shot and the Ring Boomerang. Turns out, my Ring Boomerang was already empty. Turns out, I had to restart the level, grind up energy on the caterpillar bots, and then fight Wily with a full Pharaoh Shot. That’s - I’ve been calling these games assholes since my very first post, but they’re very rarely this unfair.

Whatever. I was half expecting the fight to have a second phase, but no, when it blew up Wily did the bowing thing and then scrambled for the back door. His base blew up, because of course he rigged it to explode, and he flew away in his UFO. I figure I could chase him, but I’ve had enough of Wily’s shit for one year. Instead, I hitch a train ride (travelling on the roof. Being a robot is great) all the way back home, where I’m greeted by Rush and Roll, the girl robot who shows up here and there. The grass is green, the sky is blue, and it’s good to finally be home.

[iamverybadatmegaman]

Wily Machine 4

Unusually for a Wily Machine stage, this one actually had a few regular enemies (the sliding invulnerable welding mask things, because Capcom hates me) before the Robot Masters. I guess they’re there to grind more refills off? I’m not anywhere near good enough at Mega Man for that, so I just slipped past them and reached the Robot Masters. As ever, all the fights were variations on mash-the-weapon-they’re-weak-to-until-they-explode, which was easier with some (Toad Man, of course, but it turns out that if you freeze Pharaoh Man when he’s on the ground all you need to do is mash the attack button) and harder with others (Dive Man is damaged from contact with the Skull Barrier, but if I’m close enough to block he’s close enough to attack.) When that was taken care of, I moved on to Wily.

He’s gone back to the floating-laser-fortress style of death machine, and again, it’s a matter of dodging his attacks long enough to find the weak spot. The first phase was easy - there was this massive skull covering the front of the thing, and I just threw Ring Boomerangs at it until it fell off - but the second phase was not. Its weak point was so high up I couldn’t reach it. Maybe the explosion from the Drill Bomb could, but every one I fired just bounced off the machine! I had no idea what to do, so I went to bed. The next day I did some googling and found out that you can detonate the Drill Bomb before impact by bashing the attack button again.

Armed with that knowledge, the fight wasn’t easy - I burned like three E cans - but it was possible. The inevitable post-Wily-Machine stage doesn’t even have a fancy introduction any more, just a new blip on the fortress map. Here’s hoping I get a chance to refuel.

[iamverybadatmegaman]

Tako Trash

This stage - set in Wily’s computer centre, I think - didn’t have any overarching gimmick, just a gauntlet of sliding corridors and spikes and enemies from across the game. I fought mummies and ladybirds and a gumball machine, and didn’t find a single weapon energy pickup, though I did collect another E can.

The Tako Trash was one of the easiest Wily stage bosses I’ve fought so far. All I had to do was jump on the platforms, shoot its glowing green weak point, and dodge its attacks. Staying on the platforms wasn’t as hard as it was during the Square Machine, and once I found its weak point I just kept hammering at it. With that done, all that’s left is Wily. And the inevitable Robot Master gauntlet. With me almost out of energy for the Dustbuster. This is gonna suuuuck.

[iamverybadatmegaman]

Metall Daddy

This first Wily stage was just full of metalls. They’re these adorable little bots that hide under their bullet-blocking hard hats and occasionally peek out to shoot. They’ve been around since 1, and since then I’ve seen a few variations, mostly ones that move in their vulnerable phase. In this stage there were standing metalls and walking metalls and spinning metalls and metalls with the cutest little snorkels bobbing about underwater - there was a long underwater section, and I only remembered Rush Marine near the end, kinda embarrassing. There were also disappearing blocks, but I didn’t even attempt to engage with those.

The Metall Daddy was a very big metall, a little bit like the minibosses from the last game. He was weak to the Dust Crusher, but he kept on hiding beneath his hard hat and jumping around the stage. He had this attack where he just summoned a bunch of metalls who immediately waddled offstage. Reminded me of the Darkside battle from Kingdom Hearts, weirdly enough. Well, onward and upward.

[iamverybadatmegaman]

Cossack Catcher

I was expecting to fight all the Robot Masters before my final showdown with Cossack, but no, it’s an ordinary fortress stage. There were two E cans, and one alternate route, and plenty of powerups scattered around, but it was basically unremarkable. Cossack himself wasn’t too hard. He was piloting some kind of crane game robot, which kept trying to pick me up and also shoot me, but it was really easy to dodge (with the rewind button) and I beat him without even burning an E can. He fell out of his robot, started doing the bowing thing...

And then Proto Man teleports in! He drops off this girl before teleporting out, and she begs me not to hurt her dad! Over the course of... I guess it’s technically a cutscene, it turns out that Wily kidnapped her to force Cossack to do bad things, and he throws a fit about being betrayed by Proto Man (dude, you don’t have to work for Wily! Come home~) before flying off to yet another skull fortress, and I... am completely unsurprised. Of course it was Wily. Next time, I begin to blow all his stuff up again.

[iamverybadatmegaman]

Cockroach Twin

An autoscroller! On platforms over instadeath pits! Complete with the colours not loading properly on the right edge of the screen and enemies orbiting the platforms! What is this, Mario? Truth be told, I liked this level; it was a nice change of pace, and not that hard by Mega Man standards. I especially liked the bouncy platforms that would fall as long as I was standing on them and then shoot up into the sky. In a non-autoscroller, I’d probably be less enthusiastic, but hey, I’ll take them over disappearing blocks.

The boss room was a platform over some spikes, and the boss went back and forth across the ceiling, shooting at intervals. It was close enough to shoot with a jump, so I did that until it exploded - with half its health bar left. Then another boss came into the room, climbing on the walls and the spikes and the ceiling, firing a lot faster and much harder to hit. Still, I won, and I didn’t even need an E can (couldn’t figure out how to get the one in front of the boss room.) Now, all that’s left is Cossack himself.

[iamverybadatmegaman]

Square Machine

This stage was... mostly unremarkable, honestly. Lots of weapon refill pickups, blocks that stick out spikes instead of disappearing... There was one section where I had to ride Rush over a spike pit, but there was this enemy that kept spawning in right next to my take-off point, so getting on the dog was much harder than it should have been. Generic fortress stage stuff, but then I reached the boss.

Oh god, the boss. It was some kind of square machine thing that kept zooming over me in segments, and I had to turn to Google just to figure out that I had to jump inside the thing to damage it. It only had one weak spot, a glowing red thing at the top that I had to jump on platforms inside to even hit and that kept shooting at me as I did so, constantly knocking me off the platforms, and then the light would turn off and it would zoom away. It was such a pain. I got an E can in the stage; I had to use it here, and I went in with almost full health. I am not looking forward to fighting this thing again for the challenges. It’s like the Yellow Devil, except I can’t cheese it.

Still, onward and upward. I’m going to shoot that bastard Cossack for making me fight that, I don’t care if I’m supposed to bring him in.

[iamverybadatmegaman]

Mothraya

They’re really going all in on the Russian theming, aren’t they? Cossack’s castle looks like a Russian church with all the domes, and outside the ground is covered in slowdown snow and the platforms are all iced over. There were slinkies, which feels like a reference to something but I can’t tell what. There were also yet more bots that jump out of bottomless pits at just the right moment to knock me inside, and a climbing section that would probably have been impossible without the balloon, all on slippery ice floors.

I was glad to get inside, which was only slightly dampened by the giant moth robot. Mothraya’s main shtick was that it kept stabbing away parts of the ground, and I had to kill it while I still had things to stand on, and also not get boxed in because instakill. I didn’t go into the fight with full health, but I did eventually win. Now for the next - yeah, I think I’m calling them Cossack Stages.

[iamverybadatmegaman]

Bright Man

One of this stage’s gimmicks was lightbulb robots and firework robots. Shoot the lightbulb robot and the lights go off, shoot the firework robot and they go back on. Makes sense seeing as ‘inside a lightbulb’ is the best way I can interpret this stage’s setting, but honestly it was mostly just easier to ignore the lightbulb robots, I think this concept was better implemented in... I wanna say 2? There were bits with grasshoppers carrying me over spike pits, occasionally blocked by totem poles that took exactly as many shots as I had time to shoot before the grasshopper turned back, which I think worked much better. Also there was a hidden path containing swinging pendulum platforms that ended in an E can, though I had to take the dog back.

I used that E can in the fight with Bright Man. He had this really annoying attack where he froze me and shot me, and I couldn’t figure out how to block it. Given that I didn’t have quite enough Rain Flush juice to take him out, well... Whatever, I won, and I got the Flash Stopper, which lets me freeze everything for a couple of seconds. Could be useful, I guess. With that, it’s on to the Wily Stages (or should that be Cossack Stages?)

[iamverybadatmegaman]

Toad Man

Drill Man’s stage frustrated me so much I forgot to mention I swung by Pharaoh Man’s stage and found a balloon! It works like Item 1 from 2, lets me float up. Still got no idea what the wire does. Oh, Toad Man’s stage? That wasn’t too hard, though it did have a nice reservoir-in-a-rainstorm theme. Mostly that was thanks to the Skull Barrier, which is less good at picking off dive-bombers than the Leaf Shield but can still be appreciated, and the Dive Missile, which nails enemies hiding on the ceiling before they can get the drop on me. There were some waterfalls pushing me about, and a couple of giant snail minibosses, but with my almost-full arsenal they were easy enough to handle.

Toad Man was the easiest boss I’ve fought in any of these games, all I did was keep hammering the Drill Bomb and he died without firing off a single shot. He dropped the Rain Flush, which takes a few seconds to fire up and then floods the screen with damage-dealing rain. Not sure how useful it’s going to be, but I’ll take it. Next up, the last Robot Master, Bright Man.

[iamverybadatmegaman]

Drill Man

The Mega Man series has what I like to call bee sections. Named after the goddamn bees from the last game, these sections feature lots of enemies that bob around you, never quite shootable, always in the way. This stage was absolutely full from them, from ladybirds to bats, with bonus spikes for added fun. There was also this bit where rocks shot down from the ceiling and crashed into fragments, with a hitbox so large I couldn’t slide away without triggering the thing again. Along the way there were whole sections of ground I had to flip a switch to reveal, often just after a rock spawn, with little flying shooting robots always circling me. I got an E can just before this section and I had to use it during the section just to survive.

Drill Man himself was moderately frustrating - he jumped around a lot and drilled under the stage even more - but I was right, the Dive Missile does home in on its targets. That made the fight much easier than it would have been. I got the Drill Bomb, which shoots exploding drills, like a more functional Crash Bomber. I also got Rush Jet back! Sadly, its functionality has been limited; now it works like Item 2 from MM2, instead of being fully pilotable. Still nice to have though. Next up, Toad Man.

[iamverybadatmegaman]

Dive Man

This game is really fond of enemies that leap up at just the right point to knock me back, isn’t it? This stage it was fish - some sort of artificial water environment - over spike pits. There were also these... jellyfish, I think? They floated up and down, stopping and starting suddenly, impossible to kill, always in the way. Miniboss-wise, this level had missile-shooting whales whose attacks I had a lot of trouble dodging while charging up my buster. Secret-wise, there was a hole in the ground that led into a spiky tunnel. At the bottom I picked up something my inventory screen calls a wire. I can’t figure out what it does, but hey, new thing!

And then there was Dive Man. I couldn’t figure how to attack him with the Skull Barrier, so I fought him with charge shots and dodging. So much dodging... Every attack took off a ton of health, his missiles homed in on me, and I’d often get stunlocked on top of his sprite and just explode. Even with my E can, it took me tons of death to finally kill him. I could probably have done it much more easily if I’d rapid-fired instead of using charge shots, but by the time I realised that the sunk cost fallacy had set in. Live and learn, I guess.

I got the Dive Missile, which I assume homes in on things. Looks a lot like the submarine gun in Smash, honestly. I’ve discovered that there’s another secret item in Pharaoh Man’s stage, so I’m going to try to go back there, and then I’ll go after Drill Man.

[iamverybadatmegaman]

Skull Man

This stage took place in some kind of giant ribcage, I think? The platforms were all bones, and there was this fossil on the wall of the boss room. The stage was full of these tiny narrow corridors, which were fun when I couldn’t not hit the turret bots’ big red bullets, and less fun when I encountered the homing welder’s mask bots again. There was also one bit where I climbed up a ladder past part of the stage and into an alternate route where I got an E can, which was nice.

Skull Man was a pretty easy boss, kinda like his level. Unfortunately, he did not drop a gun that shoots skulls. Instead, I got the Skull Barrier, which acts as a hovering shield - it looks pretty much like the Leaf Shield from 2 but with skulls. I can’t attack enemies with it, but I can move around while it’s up, which should be useful. Next up is Dive Man, who I hope is carrying some kinda dog upgrade. I’m halfway through the robot stages and I still only have Rush Coil!