Messages

16

Mega Man Discussion / Re: My opinion on the Mega Man series. Yours?

« on: January 06, 2017, 03:14:43 AM »

Classic series wins hands down. The only X series game I can even think of touching would be X1, and only if I had absolutely nothing else to do. *Erases the 96s left on Super Mario World*

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Mega Man Discussion / Re: My opinion on the Wily Bosses. Yours?

« on: December 11, 2016, 02:55:50 AM »

MM4's boss wasn't that bad - unless you were talking about the Wily Machine rather than the UFO. I don't have much trouble with the Pharaoh Shot unless Wily happens to telefrag me or spawn right above or below me. Wily Machine 4 however, it always manages to corner me and dump a diagonal shot straight for me no matter how I try to avoid getting in that situation in the first place! Detonating the Drill Bombs or using charged shots isn't really a problem.

I usually just spam the fuck out of Metal Blade holding up and right and it goes down, for form 1 just jump and do it, you can get 3 hits out per jump usually, and if you aren't on hard it's 2 damage a blade.

Yes, on "Normal" mode, you can perfect-run Wily Machine 2 using just Metal Blades if Wily is the right position when the first form is destroyed and that you don't miss or have any shots deflected on the second form - of course if a buster-only perfect run can't be done even on normal mode (TAS aside), why not use what's left of Atomic Fire to one-shot the first form too! Once Wily's started firing those bouncing shots though that's the end of the perfect run if he isn't dead in the last 3 or so Metal Blades. Metal Blades really are overrated in that game, not helping that you can have 3 shots on screen and in normal mode (NES only) all shots do double damage. Yet they suck for killing hermit crabs and giant frogs!

Glad they fixed the Wily shot hitboxes in the Wily Wars, in that version you can avoid them quite easily, and a buster-only perfect run of Wily Machine 2 is a walk in the park - can't say the same about the eight robot masters beforehand though since the AI was altered on all of them, and in some cases are practically impossible to beat without taking at least one hit (Flash Man of all bosses - spams his Time Stopper whenever he wants and only takes 1 damage from the buster instead of 2 or 4; not only that, but Wood Man is the same size as Doc Wood too, and the Wily Wars engine gives them more invincibility frames, so you can't rapid-fire them the same way as the NES). The only ones made easier were Heat Man and Crash Man (one of Air Man's tornado patterns also goes right over your head though, nerfing at least one of his patterns, but no, it wasn't that annoying one and that one will most likely still hit you when you try to jump through it).

I often wonder why the Wily Tower (Wily Wars) boss was weak to the Thunder Beam throughout every form, given that you could choose 8 weapons out of the 22 in the first 3 games (that and the fact one of the earlier Wily stage bosses was also weak to it). Maybe it's a reference to MM1 (Wily Machine 1 actually was weak to it in Wily Wars, taking 4 damage per shot even in the second form) or the fact that nothing has come close to the Thunder Beam since the first game, even nerfing it by making it ridiculously slow doesn't affect it that much.

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Mega Man Discussion / Re: Things in Megaman that you never noticed before until recent

« on: October 22, 2016, 06:37:27 PM »

Having recently bought Rockman 5 Complete Works, I have found the MM5 Dark Man stage palette quirk doesn't happen on the PlayStation; the ground is always blue rather than purple.

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Mega Man Discussion / Re: Least Favorite Robot Master from Each Game

« on: October 05, 2016, 06:09:09 AM »

Spark Shock isn't even that useful on Magnet Man, he's easy enough to perfect every time due to the pattern, takes 2 damage from the buster, and Shadow Blades can take him out while he's in the air throwing his Magnet Missiles. Not only that, even his own weapon is even better to use in the rematch, despite doing 4 damage instead of 7 (moot if he does nothing but the magnet pull every time). The only time I use Spark Shock is to freeze the Bikky twins on Wily 3 and hit the cannon on the Wily Machine, since it's faster than using Hard Knuckles.

Spark Man is nothing, the only difficult part of the fight is navigating the boss room itself, as with Flash Man. On flat ground, all he would do is slowly hop towards you like an idiot, fire the odd Spark Shock combo now and then, and be taken down in no time. He doesn't have the Guts Man/Hard Man stun effect and his shots don't deflect yours like Air Man or Wood Man, and he doesn't have the speed or jumping ability of Quick Man (or Needle Man), nor does his Spark Shock affect you in any way besides the minor damage it does (IIRC one of them was meant to freeze you in place like Megaman's version does, but it never made it into the game, otherwise the effect would have been somewhat similar to Bright Man or Dark Man 3, where you're open to the next attack or collision damage - I'd say the small shots would have done it, leaving you open to eat the 'charged' Spark Shock which always follows).

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Mega Man Discussion / Re: Least Favorite Robot Master from Each Game

« on: September 24, 2016, 07:25:54 AM »

Just don't go to Heat Man's stage with the Buster and Air Shooter (and Item-2) only. Tellies can get annoying fast if you can't shoot downwards! More annoying is the fact that they are also immune to the Bubble Lead which can shoot straight down from those high platforms (yet it can destroy a Springer, go figure).

The snail on Toad Man's stage is easy once you get the hang of it. Don't jump unless absolutely necessary and the eye attack becomes nothing (of course, don't get stuck under the waterfall either as you won't be able to jump high under it, which they forgot about out in MM5 when the same water gimmick was used in Napalm Man's stage). Of course, sliding off the edge into the bottomless pit would also suck so still be careful.

Knight Man is like Bomb Man to me, he just jumps around a bit and throws his weapon occasionally. I have way more trouble with Tomahawk and Centaur (no, I still can't get that pattern, he always freezes me and lands that cheap shot).

The large dinosaur in Slash Man's stage is a piece of cake if you grind the Junk Shield into its mouth before it even has the chance to corner you. Slash Man however is still Slash Man and it all comes down to luck on how many times that red stuff lands right on your head or just in front of you to stick you to the ground. Much like Air Man as a matter of fact - it's not the boss but the projectiles. If it was Slash Man jumping around and using the Slash Claw only, a piece of cake, probably even easier than Ring Man's pattern. If only a Robot Master weapon could destroy the red stuff (e.g. burn it with Scorch Wheel, which was his alternate weakness anyway). The X series sort of fiddles with that type of gameplay, for example using the Boomerang Cutter against Launch Octopus at the start despite it not being his weakness, and 7 actually does do it but only to make things harder for you (e.g. Thunder Bolt against Spring/Turbo). Probably the worst thing about 7 is the disproportionate invincibility each boss has e.g. Junk Man and Burst Man lose their invincibility frames almost instantly and can be hit much faster (as does Spark Mandrill from X1 when being frozen), yet Spring and Slash take forever to recover, and your own invincibility only lasts for about half a second, way less than the NES games.

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Mega Man Discussion / Re: Is it just me...

« on: September 23, 2016, 10:47:03 AM »

Doesn't 7 use the X series engine though? I'm sure it could be done, especially if people can make a map/level editor of X1-3 (e.g. MegaED X). A number of earlier Robot Master Boss sprites could be ripped from the arcade games if need be, all you need to do is squash them by a third to fit the narrower SNES screen (256 wide vs. 384 on CPS - both have the same height, as can be seen when you compare Megaman's sprite between 7 and Power Battle/Power Fighters). I'm sure MegaED X could support 7 with a bit of work - they already have Rockman & Forte in there.

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Mega Man Discussion / Re: Least Favorite Robot Master from Each Game

« on: September 22, 2016, 02:05:45 PM »

I managed to get Guts Man stuck in the teleporter two days ago during the Wily stage rematch (his first jump was immediately in the air to throw a Guts Block as programmed, then followed by three forward jumps, one Guts Block, then more forward jumps; not once did he jump away). That became an unwinnable fight, as the ground shook constantly and Megaman couldn't stand up at all in order to fire. As Guts Man couldn't jump due to being stuck inside the teleporter, it counted as him jumping and landing simultaneously.

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Mega Man Discussion / Re: Is it just me...

« on: September 21, 2016, 10:06:13 AM »

So glad Dr. Wily isn't following Megaman everywhere instead of Shade Man.

Seriously though, why doesn't anyone ever hack Megaman 7? There are so many enemies and gimmicks recycled from the NES games that makes it probably the best Megaman game to ever make a ROM hack from, and the Super Nintendo doesn't have even half of the limitations that the original NES had (although I do see a palette glitch caused by the boss being with regular enemies).

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Mega Man Discussion / Re: Is it just me...

« on: September 18, 2016, 06:27:58 PM »

What's wrong with Megaman 7? Aside from Dr. Wily and Slash Man's cheap attacks... Yes, and that stupid part of Turbo Man's stage which requires almost pixel-perfect timing and jumping (the Quick Man-wannabe section is nothing compared to that). And the letdown boss that is Mash. No fighting classic Robot Masters in the robot museum "stage" (after just seeing Wily steal Guts Man), just a clown bot which is weak to the Danger Wrap of all things. I dismissed 8 altogether as it didn't even feel like a Megaman (classic) game to me, the only thing I remember it for is the animated intro and the weird pseudo-3D styling it had (whereas 7's 16-bit sprites actually looked OK and not overcomplicated).

At least 7 kept everything somewhat similar, e.g. Rush adaptors, energy tanks, square platforms (no hills, which were only in the X series at that point - Auto's truck can't go over the blocky platforms and Auto ends up commenting that the road is too unstable); the only fault it had was the cramped space due to the larger sprites, although it could also be hand-waved by saying it's a spiritual successor to the Game Boy games as well, which had the same problem due to the small screen (and they also had the shop which the NES games lacked), and having just 4 Robot Masters at the start as well. Give RM7FC 16-bit shaded sprites of the same size as the original (e.g. Wily Wars style) and the SNES music and that is how 7 probably should have been (but still retaining the SNES feature of having 4+4 bosses, Auto's shop and flinching bosses etc. - in MM1 Cut Man and Elec Man suffer knockback when hit with a regular buster shot, even in the Wily Wars remake, there's no excuse to why 7FC's bosses don't flinch or reset their pattern when hit with a charged shot or their weakness).

About the "Die Wily!" part, that's clearly American-Kirby-is-Hardcore syndrome. There's no way Capcom Japan would have put that in there; it goes with every other stupid thing Capcom USA did to the series.

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Mega Man Discussion / Re: Least Favorite Robot Master from Each Game

« on: September 09, 2016, 04:06:23 AM »

And, another mountain of text!

Guts Man's music isn't that bad, the sound engine they used in MM1-2 was fairly ordinary (as proven by the MM2 Ultra hack which borrows a few tunes from the other games, and a few X ones as well). Sounds a bit better in the Wily Wars (not a fan of the remixed version from the arcade games and PS1/2 ports). That said, Guts Man in a boss room with no Guts Blocks to stand on and one or two hits worth of energy left after taking on three bosses back to back (did Fire Man go on a Fire Storm rampage or did you mistime a jump through the Ice Slashers? Or both) with no energy refills in between? Now that fight is a total coin flip, and back to Bomb Man's chamber if you lose (jump away from me, Guts Man!!!! *Two Guts Blocks to face back to back with nowhere to dodge*), or to Wily with next to no energy if you win (thanks for the large WEAPON energy near the door of the final boss, Capcom!).

Heat Man's stage only sucks for one thing, and one thing alone. The fact that it's almost impossible to jump out of a block when there's one immediately above you due to the way the game engine works (same problem happens in Elec Man's stage, where a large energy capsule is located) - walls are made of solid, square 8x8 or 16x16 pixel (can't remember) blocks and Megaman's hitbox does not clip through the edges whatsoever, unlike Mario games for example (they changed this slightly in the Wily Wars) - that and if you were in the exact same spot when it appeared, you will be pushed off to the side and most likely to your death. The Atomic Fire is only bad for the energy it uses when fully charged, and the fact that the uncharged shot is worse than your own buster shot, being not only slower in that it doesn't fire until you let go of the button, but can only have two shots on screen, making it even worse than useless for people who never though to hold the button down for a good number of seconds to beat Wood Man in 1-2 hits, most newbies just spam the fire button like they would with Metal Blades, see the two tiny fireballs which do practically no damage to anything, bosses and all, and think it's a really crap weapon). At least they got it right in Megaman 4 with the Pharaoh shot.

Top Spin sucks against bosses, and the entirety of Hard Man's stage (save for the monkeys). You can blame Capcom for that. Megaman should be completely invincible while spinning, and the Top Spin should only count for one hit when it connects with an enemy or boss, not once per frame while both you and Shadow Man (who is invincible after the first hit connects) are jumping all over the place. They fixed this in the Wily Wars, although you still get damaged if you are in contact with an enemy who doesn't die in one hit (Shadow, Top, Doc Heat, Doc Crash; don't think any regular enemies hurt you while you're spinning unless they are immune).

Dive Man can be beaten just by spamming the buster and hopping over him (don't jump high or he will throw the missiles at you or charge into you before you can land). Buster shots take out the Dive Missiles too, so if you're not in the air, he will fire them straight across the screen (a charged shot can take out more than one since it goes through them). I do agree with one thing though, the Skull Barrier is all but useless against him, most of the time the missiles take out your shield before you can hit him or you take collision damage because he decided to smash into you, although the same can be said about Gravity and Tomahawk as well. The Dive Missile isn't that good either, it either does 1 point of damage to enemies or it circles around them forever until it finally hits it. It really is only useful for beating Drill Man (and the hippos in Ring Man's stage, if you don't have the Pharaoh Shot or Flash Stopper). Whatever it can do, Pharaoh/Drills/Rings/Dust can usually do it better. Even the Rain Flush for that matter.

Agree 100% with Wave Man and his stage. It was so bad it made a second appearance on the Game Gear, which really does have the worst Megaman music in history, and they didn't even give Wave Man's stage the correct music despite it being in the game! At least they didn't have Charge Man in there. Or Quick Man, considering his stage was there in full.

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Mega Man Discussion / Re: Mega Man 4 Remade

« on: September 03, 2016, 07:23:00 PM »

Yep, just music, no actual game to go with it unfortunately.

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Mega Man Discussion / Re: Mega Man Powered Up Discussion Topic

« on: August 30, 2016, 01:13:49 PM »

I hate Oil Slider because you can only shoot one at a time.

Just like the original NES weapons then.

One Rolling Cutter, one Thunder Beam, one Fire Storm, one Ice Slasher, one Guts Block (Super Arm), one Hyper Bomb. Yet five Magnet Beams...

Contrast with 2 Bubble Leads, 2 Atomic Fire shots, 3 Metal Blades, 4 Quick Boomerangs (arguably, the Air Shooter could be counted as 3 shots on-screen as well, and 3 Item-1 platforms too).

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Mega Man Discussion / Re: Least Favorite Robot Master from Each Game

« on: August 30, 2016, 01:00:19 PM »

I hate Elec Man with a passion on the Wily Wars. Not so much on the original NES game, since you can stick him near the edge of the room and fire a single weak buster shot over and over and over again until he's dead, or three Rolling Cutters (or even just two if you're lucky). Doesn't work like that on WW, he just jumps all over the place spamming the Thunder Beam until one of the two robots are dead, and bosses get a long period of invincibility between hits in this version (roughly the same as Megaman, so it's "fair" in a way). And even if you die, he keeps jumping around spamming it anyway! The worst thing is when he jumps and throws the Thunder Beam in mid-air at just the right height that it's impossible to jump over, yet too low for it to pass over your head (can't slide!!!) so you take 10 damage without a hope of avoiding it (unless you manage to run into him instead, which does 4 damage, as using the Magnet Beam would be suicidal as it takes forever to disappear and chances are he'll run underneath you or he'll throw another Thunder Beam and you'll land on one of the two and take damage anyway).

Speaking of Wily Wars, not a fan of Hard Man either. You can't scroll the Hard Knuckles off the side of the screen, you can't slide under them anymore (same with the Shadow Blades in fact), and by the time you jump over one or both, he's slammed into the ground and frozen you in place just long enough that one of the Hard Knuckles comes back to hit you. I have been able to perfect-run Shadow Man's stage buster-only on the Wily Wars yet I can't do the same with Hard Man, go figure. Even with Magnet Missiles he's a pain (not to mention they are uselessly slow as they now stop to turn around before heading upwards to hit him).

Edit: Apparently you can't slide under Hard Knuckles on the NES either (just the Shadow Blades). Don't know how I thought that was possible...


Outside of the Wily Wars, I don't like fighting Drill Man or Centaur Man. Or Tomahawk Man if going buster-only. The ones in 5 aren't really that bad, although Crystal Man's crystals bouncing all over the place at the start of the fight can be annoying. Actually, I think 6 is the one I play the least, useless powers (let's see - you get analogs of the Bubble Lead/Gravity Hold (Wind Storm), Bubble Lead/Search Snake (Flame Blast), Air Shooter (Silver Tomahawk), Rain Flush (Centaur Flash), Skull Barrier (Plant Barrier), Needle Cannon/Quick Boomerang (Yamato Spear), Knight Crusher (Ring Boomerang; one could argue it could also be a nerfed Boomerang Cutter from X1, since X came out before 6 did, as odd as it seems) and Blizzard Attack, which is probably the only unique weapon, although in a way it's similar to Dust Crusher), useless Beat who doesn't attack bosses, "bloody Power Piston", useless Mechazaurus (why can't Power Megaman cause 3-4 damage when he hits the platforms back so it can be done quicker?), and useless Wily fight which is weak to the same weapon for all three forms. Not only that, they didn't even give you M tanks in this game (no wonder the W/S tanks were in 7 afterwards).

As for hacks, whose idea was it in Megaman Ultra to make the Leaf Shield the weakness for the Guts Tank? People don't like taking forced damage in order to beat a boss, even if it was supposed to be a puzzle boss (normally you can only fire the Leaf Shield 9 times max; Guts Tank takes a lot more, so you have to stand right under its face, get damaged, jump in the air while invincible and spam the fire button without moving). Seriously, how are you supposed to get around the hand and/or the Crash Bombs without getting hit, and without "cheating" using Item-1 or whatever? Then again, the whole game feels unpolished like that. Quick Man's stage is literally full of faceless (technical limitation - the face is a different sprite to the body) "Break Man" Sniper Joes and their mechs (masquerading as Jumbigs), both of which throw projectiles that look suspiciously similar to what the Wily Machine throws at you (and they do about the same damage), and the stage doesn't even have the force beams it's known for. The music in the game doesn't quite sound right either (especially the Super Mario 1 tune, so many off notes in there), and I don't mean the way the waveforms sound (that's a limitation with the MM1-2 sound engine I think). Makes me want to rip the music, fix the notes and somehow hack it back into the game. I absolutely hate the two Wily stage tunes in this game too, the just sound awful; I'm sure they could have at least used one of the other Wily or Dark Man/Mr. X tunes there, or yet another tune from Megaman X (Flash and Bubble used tunes from X1, and Heat uses one from X3 I think it is) - if not Megaman 7, which would be more fitting, RM7FC's NES tunes sound awesome too. The one good thing they did was make the Atomic Fire (or, Heat Buster in-game) actually useful - it no longer drains nearly half of the energy bar when a charged shot is fired (unfortunately they didn't modify the charge-up time so it still takes forever, although a charged Atomic Fire does a lot more damage than the charged Mega Buster from 4 onward). Oh, right, Robot Masters. I think just about all of them qualify, as they completely wrecked the boss AI in this game (thankfully, they kept their weaknesses intact).

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Mega Man Discussion / Re: Things in Megaman that you never noticed before until recent

« on: August 17, 2016, 02:56:08 AM »

Messing with cheats...

In Megaman 3, if you die while retrieving the weapon from a defeated Robot Master (e.g. the game is filling up the weapon energy in the menu before it goes to the "You Got" screen), you are put back into the hallway to fight the boss again, but you also get to keep the weapon. Of course, you can't actually die after beating a boss since the game locks the controls, and there are no bottomless pits or spikes in the Robot Master rooms anyway. The only way to do this is to get Megaman to fall into a bottomless pit by hacking his vertical position in the game RAM.

Change Megaman's vertical position (NES RAM 0x3C0, at least on the US version, haven't checked Rockman 3 or the European version) to a high number like 0xF0 (240 decimal) after defeating the boss while the weapon energy is filling up; when the game unpauses itself, Megaman will fall into the abyss and the game will respawn you instead of taking you to the "You Got" screen. Note: You do not get Rush Jet or Rush Marine if you do this against Needle/Shadow, only the Robot Master weapon. If you kill Megaman before the menu screen shows up, the weapon glitch won't happen. Note: When this is done in Shadow Man's boss room, Megaman will fall through the floor into another boss hall, simply keep poking 0xF0 before the screen scrolls into that room so he falls into the abyss before he can teleport out (if he teleports, "You Got Shadow Blade and Rush Marine"). Note 2: Don't freeze Megaman's height when he is teleporting, as the game will get stuck for ages (if not forever) even if you have disabled the cheat.

If you get a game over after doing this, you get to keep the weapon too, even if you go back to the stage select instead of continuing on the same stage, and the Robot Master is still not considered defeated so you can go back into their stage even though you have the weapon! Note: If you reset the game and attempt to use the password it gave you, you will not get the extra weapon(s) - it's the same password you get depending on how many bosses you defeated (and of course, 0-9 energy tanks). In other words, if you decide to glitch every single weapon and 9 energy tanks for a killer password, it won't happen, all you'll get is plain old red A6 (assuming you have 9 tanks) and/or any bosses you defeated without glitching. Lastly, since you didn't actually receive the Rush Jet and Rush Marine, remember to fill up on both if you need them (use the Shadow Blade/Spark Shock weapon select glitch and Gemini Man's stage to refill both - RM needs Gemini Man's stage since there are no other water sections until the Doc Robot/Wily stages when you have everything anyway).

Just some interesting/useless info if someone wants to reprogram the game to add a kaizo trap or whatever.

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Mega Man Discussion / Re: Things in Megaman that you never noticed before until re

« on: August 04, 2016, 07:10:53 AM »

Does that mean Bright Stopper should be Time Man's weapon?

Shade Man's Noise Crush also qualifies as a rule-breaker (and a game-breaker too against Turbo Man!)

Atomic Heat and Wood Shield need to become weapons now.