When you think of Mega Man, what comes to mind first? The interesting and varied weapon selections? The intricate rock-paper-scissors system with the bosses? Well, throw all those thoughts out the window and shoot at them until they stop twitching, because ladies and gentlemen, it's time to get masochistic. For the first 6 games in the Classic branch of the Mega Man franchise, I'll be going at them using only the Mega Buster, that ol' lemon shooter that's the most vanilla, if not the weakest, weapon in each game. Although it comes with unlimited ammunition, something it carries over the Robot Master weapons, its small hitbox and relatively low damage ensures its low status in the pecking order of the Blue Bomber's arsenal, and of course, for the sake of the challenge, I'll be using nothing but that. There's only 2 exceptions:
1. Non-Robot Master items meant for transportation, such as MM1's Magnet Beam and Rush in everything starting with 3, can be used as long as they're for collecting health/ammo/other goodies or in the case of a section that's impossible without it. Generally, I'll try not to cheat my way out by using them for those damn disappearing block rooms.
2. RM weapons would obviously have to be used in situations where progress can't be made without them. Examples that come to mind include the passage in MM1's first castle stage blocked by boulders you need Super Arm for, and a certain accursed boss in MM2 that's immune to the Mega Buster.

That being said, let's start with the series's humble beginnings, Mega Man 1.



As there's no weakness order, it's a given that it's only a matter of preference which Robot Master you want to start with. For me, at least, I want to try and go after the stages with essential items first and then knock down the rest from easiest to hardest. In this case, we'll want to go after Guts Man first. His weapon is the key to grabbing the Magnet Beam in Elec Man's stage, and if you didn't have his weapon when you went through Elec Man's stage, you would have no choice but to retry the level once you have the means. Just to sweeten the deal, there's a certain section in Wily Castle 1 where you need the Magnet Beam to progress, so if you don't have it, you're pretty fucked. Ffffffolks, I wish this would be the last bit of poor game design this game has to offer.



It's what we call in the business a "good thing" that this stage happens to be the shortest RM one in the game, and one of the easiest to boot. Your first foes will be the iconic New York Mets, but as long as you shoot them the instant they pop their head above the ground, they shouldn't be an issue. Instead, the first real threats of this run are the infamous lifts.....which honestly aren't as bad as everyone says they are. The timing can be intimidating at first, but the key is to jump as soon as the left edge of the platform reaches the left side of the break in the lines. It wouldn't necessarily hurt to short jump as much as possible so you're always prepared, too. Once the nightmare is over, you'll be faced with a horde of Bladers that can be a headache if they swarm up on you, so instead of trying to kill them, try to run away and jump inbetween them and send them to their offscreen doom.



Next, you'll find yourself facing a group of these miners, who are pretty damn fed up from Mitch McConnell not giving them the rights they deserve and have the tendency to throw out pickaxes fast and hard. Although their patterns are tricky, what I suggest trying is running up to them as they throw their first pickaxe, run back as they throw their second axe, jump away from them with their third, and repeat the process, shooting all the while until they're defeated. Even if you make a mistake or two, they're not terribly resilient, and after the last one throws 5 pickaxes, you can just ignore him entirely and move down to the next screen. After going down the pit in the middle on the next screen (the other two lead to a pit of spikes, as unfair as that sounds, you'll find that they saved the worst enemy for last:



This would be a Big Eye, a concerningly common fellow who can take away a third of your health, if you're not careful, Not that you have much luck in the matter; these enemies can either do a short hop or a long hop....except it's completely random which order they do this in. Once you drop down to this middle platform, you'll want to be as close to him as you feasibly can and pray that it does a long hop. If not, that's perfectly okay; a good rule of thumb for these runs is that if you find yourself low on health right before a boss fight, it's good to lose a live right away so that you'll be respawned to the boss corridor with freshly refilled health...assuming you have more than one live, of course. Once you enter the boss corridor and mow down the Mets (don't worry, this is the only game in the series where the pre-boss hallway contains enemies), you'll be ready to fight one big piece of work:



Guts Man is a very precise boss...at least, that's what I suspected anyway. See, how he works is that jumps and creates a paralyzing shockwave in the hopes of siccing you with a boulder (you'll know he's about to throw one when he jumps straight up). Being the overthinking person I am, I reasoned that if I used pixel-perfect timing to jump the second he landed, I could avoid the shockwave and be able to jump over his rocks, buuuuut of course I found a Youtube walkthrough where the player didn't jump at all during the shockwave and was still able to miss his attacks. So really, either option could work, but honestly, the first is probably the safer bet. He also has the tendency to jump towards or away from you, and if you find yourself in the position where he's on the same elevated space as you are, it's honestly safer to let yourself get hit and use invincibility frames to get to the other side of the stage, where ironically you would be in a better place to avoid his boulders than where you were originally. But since he doesn't jump high enough to let you walk under him, this is more of a last resort than anything else. Regardless, he should go down relatively fast, as he's one of the few bosses who takes extra damage from Mega Buster shots, and once he's done, collect the orb, relish in the satisfying congratulatory music, and go back to the stage select.



Now, you have the means necessary to collect that sweet Magnet Beam, but we're in no rush to get it as long as it's before Ice Man or Fire Man's stage. Instead, how about we take a breather by taking on a few of the more relaxed stages? Cut Man's stage is without a doubt the easiest stage in the game, though that's generally a given for levels you're actually meant to do first. After you shoot down/jump over the Bladers, you'll find yourself in several screens' worth of these annoying turret enemies. It'll take a bit of observation to avoid their semi-bullet hell barrages, but luckily, they go down in one hit if you're able to hit them.



On the next screen, after you run past the scissors machine that's the only indication this is a stage that belongs to a guy with scissors on his head, and after that a group of jumping enemies that go down in one hit, you'll meet up with the other prevalent enemies of this stage, Octopus Batteries. Unlike those turrets from earlier, they take quite a number of hits to down, so it's recommended that you only try and kill them when necessary, or else you'll soon find yourself sandwiched to the ground. The best strategy for each of these rooms goes as follows:

1st screen: kill the first Battery, wait until the ladder is clear to climb up it
2nd screen: jump from the block to the platform and advance to the upper-right ladder from there
3rd screen: kill the first Battery, climb as fast as you can up the ladder
4th screen: kill the Battery going up and down, advance to the ladder

This has been today's ASPCA commercial on the conservation of the Octopus Battery species.



After dealing with more Bladers, it's time for one of the more problematic enemies in the game. These Flying Shells fire speed-of-sound bullets in 8 directions and can be a nightmare if you're not careful, and since they respawn if you kill one anyway, it's honestly best to adopt the Joestar Family Secret Technique and run the hell away. After two screens of this, you'll encounter another Big Eye, and this time you should be on the lowest level to pray to not get hit. Next, you'll find that the boss hallway is full of these screw-like enemies that can fire bullets in 5 directions once they pop up. For the ones on the ground, you can fire as fast as you can as soon as they rise up, and for the ceiling ones, just take some jump shots while they're still dormant. And now, you're ready for the big cheese himself:



Cut Man is preeeeetty damn pathetic. It's nothing against him personally, if any one of you taped a pair of scissors to your forehead as well I wouldn't hesitate to laugh in your face. There's two simple strategies for this guy: either jump over his scissors twice when he throws it like a boomerang, or, if he jumps up to catch it, run towards the spot he jumped from so you're safe. Couple that with the fact that he actually suffers from knockback, you have yourself a very easy fight.

Next time: Bomb Man's Secret Service agents are a pain in the ass and Elec Man is a giant weeb.

>Now, you have the means necessary to collect that sweet Magnet Beam, but we're in no rush to get it as long as it's before Ice Man or Fire Man's stage.

so much for limiting yourself to the absolute most vital uses..............................

good writeup, i like how indepth you're going. very refreshing compared to a lot of LP type things that glaze over fucking everything

btw gutsman's platforms are still a fucko even when you know how to do them. i don't know why they specifically screw me up so much when the invisible blocks everyone else complains about are much easier to me

The only thing worth saying about Bomb Man's stage is that it doesn't really scream "Bomb Man". After all, nothing goes along with a demolition robot than a cheery and upbeat song and a bunch of giant spheres in the background, right? After dealing with yet another group of those one-hit jumping enemies (okay fine, they're called Fleas), you'll have your first encounter with these Bombombs, indestructible enemies that break up into 4 smaller bombs. They become quite problematic later in the run, but for now, all you have to do is hug the wall until the bomb in front of you has gone away and hurrying to the next pillar before the bomb behind you can harm you. After this will be a row of those screw enemies right next to each other. Sure, you can unleash your inner Touhou player and jump through their shots if you wish, but I much prefer to deal with them on the ground and save the trouble. Speaking of bullet hells, you're lucky enough to have the next screen to be 4 of those turret enemies lined up a wall! Dodging their shots while you're on the ladder will take some reflexes on your part, but once you've avoided the top one's third shot by hugging the wall, you're good to go.



Next is the Sniper Joe, a hot mess of an enemy that has no clear-cut pattern and impenetrable defense half of the time. The best advice I can really give you is shoot at him when he draws his weapon while jumping straight over his shots, hoping for the best. Next, you'll find a nasty double trouble scenario with more turrets and these discount Bullet Bills that explode with a large blast radius if you shoot them. Pacifism is the way to go here; after shooting the first one, jump over the Bullet Bills while they're at their lowest point and jump over the turrets before they start shooting.



These Spine enemies go faster when you're on their ground and can only be paralyzed with the Mega Buster, so your best option is ignoring them entirely, here. On the next screen, go straight to the ladder on the left for another Flying Shell segment. Unfortunately, here you have no choice but to dodge their shots; you can still kill them in one hit, but this won't do anything but delay the inevitable. You should be fine as long as you're a step or two away from being directly under them, but you're still going to need a bit of luck. With the Sniper Joe guarding the boss door, you can use a bit of cheese and shoot at their toes when they pull away their shields. Once you get to the boss corridor, assuming you have enough health, you can afford to just jump off the ladder; you will for sure get hit by an Octopus Battery, but invincibility frames will make sure you'll pass through the rest of them, and trust me, you'll have more than enough health for the boss ahead:



Bomb Man is really nothing to, ahem, explode over. When he's not jumping and leaving himself vulnerable as soon as he lands, the biggest threat about him is that his bombs have a massive blast radius, but you should be fine as long as you start very close to him when he's ready to throw them and gradually run away as he throws them (you'll never want to switch directions until he starts jumping again). Thankfully, he takes two hits to a Mega Buster shot, so between that and his easy strategy, he's as good as dead.

...And of course, it's all downhill from here.



It's at this point in the game where the difficulty curve starts to rear its ugly head. All stages from this point on have demanding level design, a nightmare of a boss, or an asinine mix of the two. Of the three Robot Masters remaining, Elec Man would be your optimal choice, if only to get that Magnet Beam already. Right from the first screen, you're faced with a dickish case of level design: not only do you have to climb these platforms that you need a pixel perfect angle for to avoid bonking your head on the ceiling, but you have to wrestle with Spines that get faster once you're close to them. With Cut Man's weapon, they're a cinch to kill, but i'm masochistic and proud damn it, the Mega Buster will have to go. If you can afford to paralyze the Spines, go for it, but only when they're very close to the wall. Otherwise, it'd be best to jump on the platforms when they're on the edge of the platforms veering away, but this is still quite tricky.



But the bullshittery doesn't end there, folks. 2 screens later, you'll see these Watcher robots that can be the bane of your existence. If you're not careful, they'll just love to hit you with a faceful of lightning bolts at the speed of sound and make you fall off the ladder for half the screen. They only show up during ladder segments. Your best shot is shooting at them as soon as you align with the ones to the upper left of you (don't mind the ones on the right unless you get hit) before they could even get the chance to draw out their eyes. After 2 screens of this, you'll then find your first sighting of a tried and true Mega Man tradition: disappearing blocks. It's hard to describe them through text, but it's generally a good rule to thumb to wait 2-3 cycles to memorize them before jumping on. Luckily this is a good training wheels set, the easiest pattern in the game.



Eventually, you'll come upon a fork in the road with a choice between two ladders, with one leading to a section with narrow Spine platforms, and the other a segment with electric beams. If you were able to use the Rolling Cutter, the left one would be ideal, but in this sort of challenge run, you'll have to bite the bullet and take the right ladder. After dealing with them and more bloody Watchers, you'll come up to a screen with something that looks like a power-up. Use Guts Man's Super Arm to throw out the blocks in its path, and the Magnet Beam is now yours. Now you don't have to redo the stage, thank God. After this, it doesn't matter which ladder you take; the left one only has one easy-to-stun Spine to deal with, but both still have a good number of electric beams. All that's left is another Big Eye (FWIW you at least have more room with it) before the boss corridor, and the big bad Robot Master himself.



Elec Man's the flashiest, posiest asshole you'll ever meet in these games. With Cut Man's weapon, the Rolling Cutter, he's normally effortless, but it's a much different tune with the Mega Buster. Not only does he only take one shot of damage with each shot, but his Thunder Beam attack is fast, is as tall as you with an erratic hitbox, and can take away a third of your health, because apparently balance wasn't invented until the 90s. Lucky for you, he has one setback that only this game possesses: good ol knockback. Some people just get up to the blocks and cheesing him via knockback, but it's still very possible for his Thunder Beams to clip your foot and set you back quite a bit. Instead, I'd recommend jumping to his right and tricking him into jumping onto the blocks, where you can cheese him then. You should be able to catch him in a loop, and soon enough, he'll be r e t i r e d. Honestly is a really fun fight, despite how much fuck-over potential he carries.

Next time: The Ice Man cometh and the Fire Man really sucketh.

i got the lemon runs once on vacay in california

imagine being bad at dealing with sniper joes...

tbh i never found elecman's stage too much of a hassle, i like that it's a vertical climb which sets it apart from a lot of the other stages also. but i am better at dealing with spine-type enemies than most apparently

elecman is a gr8 and challenging fight if you aren't weaknessing him yeah

This post was last modified: Jan 31, 2020 at 1:39 AM by MoonAge.

hush about the sniper joes draku you haven't even seen the worst yet

Also, before I say anything further, I should address something key here: Save states are perfectly okay to use, but only under certain conditions. In other words, it's probably not ideal to savescum every single time you die, but if there's a particularly hard boss you want to save progress right before to avoid any hassle, then go for it. Trust me, you do not need the trouble of enduring an entire stage just to get a shot at nailing down a boss's pattern, only to get a game over and restart the entire stage. Several times. Think of it as how bosses work in Soulsborne games, basically. That being said, probably the only versions of the games that I wouldn't recommend trying for this challenge are the original NES versions and the ports for the 6th gen Anniversary Collection, aka the versions without any quicksaving. And now, back to the show, who's ne-oh goddamnit



Jesus fuuuuck these last two stages. You're in for a rough time no matter what you pick between Ice Man and Fire Man, but just to delay the inevitable we'll be going after the former first. The first real challenge are these pits infested with Spines, and since these pits are pretty wide you'll likely be falling into the pits 90% of the time. The very least you can do is only jump when the Spines are to the right of the pit, and you'll want to always be shooting thanks to an endless wave of these annoying penguin enemies. After this, you'll have two more disappearing block sections, which are conveniently more complex than the ones you faced in Elec Man's stage and have a Spine waiting for you if you mess up. Once again, memorization is key here. It's really the best advice I can give without flooding my laptop's lackluster storage with screenshots.



And this abomination of a segment, folks, is why it was imperative for you to get the Magnet Beam. These are Foot Holders, floating platform enemies you need to step on in order to cross. But there are catches, so many catches:

1. The Holders can randomly shoot bullets from their sides, and thanks to a combination of narrow walking space and knockback, it's pretty damn likely that one hit will send you to your 1500-feet death,
2. The penguin enemies will return for the second half, making your bullet dodging all the more busy,
3. There's a narrow pillar between the two halves that has ice physics applying to it, so stepping on it in the wrong angle could possibly send you slipping to the bottomless pit,
and 4. The Holders' flight patters are completely fucking random. You could easily be stuck for up to a minute on the last holder just so you can get back to solid ground.

There is no memorization to be had here. If you feel extremely lucky, you can brave this section the old fashioned away, but honestly, I won't put it against you if you just use the Magnet Beam to ignore all of this entirely. It's all up to how much you can handle headaches. The last obstacles in your way are yet another Big Eye (with ice physics, how fun) and a boss corridor filled with penguin enemies, which you can handle by simple running and shooting, and it's boss time.



Christ, out of all the Captain Cold cosplayers out there, Ice Man is by far the most annoying. For his attack, he spits out 2 rows of three icicles, and even if they're simple to dodge on paper, the challenge is worse than that. These iciles deal a ridiculous amount of damage, any one of them capable of lobbing off a third of your health, and of course the hitboxes are thick and the gaps are small, not leaving much room for error. Not only that, but can also walk awfully close to you, which can put on a lot of pressure even if it doesn't make it harder to dodge, and it doesn't help that he doesn't suffer from knockback. Lastly, he's one of the only two Robot Masters in the game to only suffer one point of damage from each Mega Buster lemon, turning into quite the marathon. The best way to deal with him is, while shooting your mechanical heart out, jumping through either the first or second gap in the first row and the first gap in the second row, this last one best with a short hop. Your reflexes will be tested more than any other RM so far, but it is certainly not impossible.

now fire man on the other hand



Fire Man's stage pre-boss isn't quite as unfair as Ice Man's, but that isn't to say there's still some bullshit segments. After killing the first few screw enemies from the ladders and dodging the rest, you'll meet up with these discount Podoboos. While they go down in one hit, where they fall is completely random, but generally, you're not in too much risk of any knockback-falls. Once you get past the flame pillars two screens later, there's a low flame laser that is slightly possible to miss, but 90%, the layout will make sure that that chance is very very low, so be prepared to take guaranteed damage even if it's low.



The rest of the stage is a breeze until you come across this....sadist's wet dream of a section. If you see this in motion, you'll notice that these fire waves move faster than you could even hope to manage, and I only managed to traverse the first opening once without fail throughout all of my playthroughs, but even then, it was a miracle from the gods. Proceed to feel justified for using the Magnet Beam to completely bypass this. The last screen before the boss corridor contains a rather disgusting combo of Bullet Bills and Spines, with not much ceiling room to avoid either of them. Manage as best as you can while firing at the Bullet Bills, and in the boss corridor, fire at the screws on the ceiling to avoid any overhead fire. Speaking of fire...



Did you know that the high difficulty of Fire Man's attacks was by sheer accident? When he's fought in Mega Man: The Wily Wars and Mega Man: Powered Up, both remakes of MM1, the speed and number of his fire waves on the screen at the same time were considerably toned down, suggesting that his behavior in this original version was a product of poor programming. It's a damn shame he wasn't touched up in literally any of this game's future ports, though...Between the sheer volume of his waves and the small fires they leave behind on the ground for you to jump on, my strategy was just to crudely brute force my way through by abusing invincibility frames and killing him before he killed me. That was until I found a strategy in a video that's much less, er...amateurish. If you fire at him right after he fires a wave, the volume of his attacks becomes much more reasonable, and you won't find yourself jumping on any of the smaller fires. What's probably not recommended is firing at him when he's right next to a wall with you cornering him, I assume because you'll land on him after he fires a wave, but otherwise, this should turn what was normally a nightmare of a boss into a cakewalk. Ha HA, I suck at this game!

Next time: Hell.

EDIT: Just for fun, I'd figure I'd rank all the other weapons I wish I could have been using.
From worst to best:

#6: The Super Arm, even if it does a good deal of damage and has a decent radius, is the only weapon in the series that requires external ammunition and is completely situational as a result. Plus, as I learned the hard way with a certain Castle boss, the rocks you use it for don't respawn after death, so either you make the best out of it your first try or you're screwed.
#5: The Ice Slasher is a godsend for dealing with Big Eyes and is required for dealing with Fire Man and a certain section in Wily Castle 1, but other than that, I could never get much use out of an item that doesn't deal damage.
#4: The Hyper Bomb is simply way too slow, and it doesn't help that the physical bomb doesn't deal any damage and it doesn't explode on contact.
#3: For a reward for beating the easiest stage in the game, the Rolling Cutter is a pretty nifty weapon, with good ammo capacity and great damage, but later on, it's slowness and limited range is kind of made obsolete.
#2: The Fire Storm is not to be underestimated, thanks to the fact that it can pass through multiple enemies at once and provides you with a short flame shield that's a fantastic get-off-me tool.
#1: If you're not cruising through the game with the Thunder Beam, you're doing it wrong. Even ignoring the fact that it fires in three directions at once and has a massive area, the fact that there's only two enemies in the entire game it doesn't kill in one hit (the Big Eye and Sniper Joes) makes it your essential MM1 weapon.

I doubt the Fire Man adjustments mean it was an accident, Powered Up had a ton of changes to everything and even the classic mode is unfaithful to the original. If anything it was likely in response to player feedback when it got changed for Wily Wars.

I must live in some bizarro world because back when I first played MM1 way back I found the Ice Man Foot Holder platforming segment fairly easy and the Gutsman platforms to be the toughest part of the entire game. I eventually improved at the Gutsman platforms over lots of replays but it's still pretty tricky to me for reasons unknown.

can't you just walk close enough to put your gun through sniper joe's shield and shoot him

Congratulations, you've beaten all six Robot Masters! Everything is terrible now! Well, that's a bit of hyperbole, but the first Wily Castle in the series isn't a pleasant experience, to say the least.



Right off the bat, you're faced with not one, but *three* Big Eyes! Wily doesn't fuck around when it comes to guarding his lawn, that's for sure. Without the Ice Slasher to freeze them midair, your best hope is running away from them until they do a high hop. At the very least, they're the last of their kind in the game, good riddance. Next are some sections that technically makes this challenge run null and void, as you need to use RM weapons in order to progress. But I'm willing to let these slide, as long as they're out of sheer necessity rather than switching to a special weapon to make a situation easier. So, proceed to use Super Arm to throw out the blocks blocking the entrance and Ice Slasher to freeze the flame pillars in place (it is possible to jump across them without it, but the ceiling makes the jump so tight that it's just much riskier). Two screens later, make sure to fire as soon as you get to the top of the ladder, unless you want a Flea to blind-side you. Completely fair.



If a picture says a thousand words, this one would be shouting expletives at you and calling you an accident. This room is just that bad. When you take the randomly patterned Foot Holders and combine them with a pit of spikes, it's easy to imagine how luck based this would be. You can still try braving it by stepping on them, but if I didn't stress enough to use the Magnet Beam last time, I certainly am now. Next is a room that also technically ends the run; it's not hard at all, you just need to use the Magnet Beam to climb the walls, but you can imagine how fucked you would be if you didn't think to revisit Elec Man's stage like so many 80s kids did. Not that you wouldn't be fucked with what comes after....



Now, I'm not going to scream and rant about the Yellow Devil. Anyone and everyone who's played Mega Man has a bone to pick with him, and I'd just be beating a dead Centaur Man. But....yeah, he's a piece of work. Not hard, once you get him down, just, tedious. Right after the boss meter shows up, you'll want to immediately jump unless you want a yellow blob applied to your forehead, and for this part of his attacks in general, you'll only want to be concerned with the blobs that reach up to Mega Man's sprites. For most of them, you'll want to jump straight up (but not too high so that you don't get hit by subsequent higher blocks), but for the third block your height, jump in the direction it came from, as it's immediately followed by another head-high block. Once it's fully assembled, you only have two seconds to hit its small eye hitbox before it disappears and the cycle starts anew, and this is where the tedious factor comes in.

Normally with the weapon you're supposed to hit it with, the Thunder Beam, missing it isn't a problem, but with the Mega Buster, the Yellow Devil is a huge fan of spawning its eye juuuust high enough to the point where you can't reach it with your Buster. Bonus points if it does this 4 times in a row like what I sat through :^). Even when you're able to hit it, there's still the chance that you could miss any of the three-four shots you're allowed before it withdraws his eye, so while normally I'm opposed to using this in this sort of run, I would absolutely recommend using the Turbo button if it's available (it doesn't break the run that much since you can only hit the eye once before it withdraws it). And for the love of god, wait until after it shoots from its eye before you counterattack; if he hits you with this, by the time you break out of your hitstun, his hitbox will be gone. In general, it's a long and slow fight, but with enough determination, you'll eventually get through.



Thankfully, the second stage is more of a relative breeze. After a section with some Bladers, you'll be faced with a rematch against Cut Man himself. Nothing much has changed since your first bout with him, and if anything he's easier to handle now that you're on equal elevation. After this, you'll have to go through a screen with more Screws, it'll be time for the trickier rematch of this stage, Elec Man. This time, the fact that there's no unequal ground makes him even harder, as you're taken away from your best exploiting tool! My best strategy here is dodging his Thunder Beams until he retreats to the left corner and firing at him after jumping over his attacks. This should catch him in a loop, but it's still wobbly at best thanks to his chaotic nature, so expect some trial and error here. On the next section with the return of the indestructible bomb enemies, dodging is a bit more difficult now that you don't have any walls to protect you. Jump outside of the furthest mini-bombs, never inbetween, and you should be fine.



As much as it pains me to say it, these next few screens with the Octopus Batteries are impossible to not get hit in while just using the Mega Buster. They really expect you to use the Thunder Beam or Fire Storm, unfortunately. You'll just have to bite the bullet, and thankfully, they don't deal that much damage....which is more than I can say for this next boss.



It's your double! It knows everything you're going to do, but that's nothing, because you know everything it's going to do! Strange, isn't it?!

....Ahem, sorry. The Copy Robot is a very dangerous foe if left unchecked, since your shots can only take away a health point each while its can take off a good fraction of it. My best advice is to jump as much as you can; thankfully, it doesn't shoot while jumping itself. It should jump right you jump, and this is the best opportunity to nail it with a lemon. This could catch it in a loop, but like Elec Man, it's still rather erratic, so I wish you good luck.

Next time: The beginning of the end of the beginning...or something.

>Ice Slasher to freeze the flame pillars in place

Huh. I never knew you could do that.

At least you acknowledge that the Yellow Devil is simple and not actually hard. I imagine doing him buster only takes a longass time.

Always found the magnet beam being required for that one part to be awful design, it should be completely optional or given to you automatically after beating ElecMan's stage like every other MegaMan game past this did. Granted that does mean they recognized it was dumb.

>Ice Slasher to freeze the flame pillars in place
Huh. I never knew you could do that.

At least you acknowledge that the Yellow Devil is simple and not actually hard. I imagine doing him buster only takes a longass time.

Always found the magnet beam being required for that one part to be awful design, it should be completely optional or given to you automatically after beating ElecMan's stage like every other MegaMan game past this did. Granted that does mean they recognized it was dumb.

it really does take away from the nonlinear progression design when the game basically says "you must do Elec Man's stage after Guts Man's to get the powerup or else you game-over yourself and restart Elec Man's, teehee tough luck". on normal runs I usually started with Cut Man before going down the usual weakness chain, but from now on I think it's going to be Cut Man followed by Bomb Man, Guts Man, and finally Elec Man just to avoid the hassle of doing a stage twice. honestly, this makes me dread a little more a certain section in Mega Man 3 that requires a power-up that's a pain if you screw up (the Rush Jet, in this case).

Fortunately, the third Wily Castle stage is the shortest in the entire game, and thus there's not many opportunities to lose health, which you're absolutely going to need for this next boss. After dodging a few screens' worth of Octopus Batteries and Screws to the best of your ability, you'll find in yourself in a hallway with rushing water and tons of penguins and Bullet Bills. Even with just the Mega Buster this is a cinch; simply jump right when they're at their lowest point. If only jumping were an option for this boss, though!



Honestly, too many people give the Yellow Devil a bad rep when the CWU-01P (god, what a miserable name) is the worst of the two, because even if the Yellow Devil is painfully slow, it's at least possible to mostly not get hit by him if you know what you're doing....which is more than I can say with this boss. The CWUs can come out of three possible doors, and which door they come out of is entirely random. Normally, their size makes them too large to jump over, and if a CWU comes out of the left or right door, you can get on the rocks in the middle to avoid it once it comes over to the floor. However, if one comes from the ceiling, you will get hit, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. My best strategy is to wait in the lower-left corner at all times and, once it gets into firing range, absolutely pelt it. The CWUs are fucking bullet sponges, each one taking 7-9 shots to kill. If they survive long enough, they'll start firing bullets of their own, and this is why it's best not to bother with the rocks as each encounter will just last longer. The CWUs will get faster with each one killed, and at a certain point even the ones that come from the walls will be fast enough to the point where you'll get hit even if you shoot at them until the cows come home. Perseverance is key here.



I suppose it's rather fitting that the last Wily Castle stage is a different beast in its own right. In these first few ladder sections, remember to shoot right when the Watchers come out (especially important when the first ladder is over a pit of spikes and this is the only game where hitstun doesn't make you immune to them, not sure why I didn't mention that until now). Next you'll find yourself in a hallway absolutely swarming with Screws. You've gone far enough to know the best spots to avoid their fire, probably, but there is one point where you'll see a Screw directly above another one. It's extremely difficult to not get hit by this one, so don't feel ashamed if you get damage. In the final lift section, you can collect the 1-up and yashichi (a powerup that recovers all your health and weapon energy, not that you'll need the latter), but keep in mind I think you'll need the Magnet Beam to get back to the ladder.



And now, let the traditional Mega Man boss rush commence (specifically against, in this order, Bomb Man, Fire Man, Ice Man, and Guts Man). There's a bit of a unique catch, though; you can't really afford to die here more than usual, as unlike future boss rushes, defeated Robot Masters don't leave behind health boosts, and instead of reaching a checkpoint with each one beaten, you have to go all the way back to Bomb Man if you lose to any of them. It's because of this that I slightly encourage using save states this time, you didn't hear that from me, though. The only other things worth noting is that for some reason, Ice Man's Ice Slashers become faster once he reaches low health, which is just fun, and it's now a bit easier to dodge Guts Man's boulders when you're both on equal elevation. Once you kill him, it's time for the head honcho himself:



The Wily Machine looks intimidating to start with, but he becomes a cakewalk once you get his patter down. The key here is to walk away from him as he's shooting at you, and after his 4th or 5th bullet, that's the best time to jump behind the bullet and nail the turret with some shots. Note: this might not be as effective when very close to the left edge of the screen. It's a bit cumbersome to describe this via text, so I recommend watching a video of this if you're having difficulties. Feel free to shoot as much as you'd like, as for some reason, the turret doesn't have hitstun, so if you shoot three lemons at it in a row, all three will register as damage. Convenience! Once Wily's first health bar is down, he breaks into his second phase, which is thankfully much simpler. This time, all he does is shoot energy balls in a spiral pattern, but if you stand directly under the machine, you'll never get hit by this. It's...rather anticlimatic, actually. As this form actually does have hitstun, you can only afford to fire one shot before he goes back to attacking. It's a bit of a slog, but honestly, you've come this far. He'll be bowing down in no time.



And there you have it, you've finished the Mega Buster run for the first Mega Man game. Relish this sense of accomplishment while you still can, the pain has only just begun. If I have to be honest with you...yeah, MM1 is my least favorite game in the classic series, or at least in the NES era. I can give it praise for laying the ground works for a very solid formula and some good music here and there, but this is a first installment, all right. The good weapons are hilariously busted and imbalanced, the game design is borderline unfair at times, the boss difficulty is all over the place...really, there's hardly any aspect of this game I wouldn't call dated. I would say Mega Man 2 improves a bunch of this, but....well, we'll get to that when we get to that.

The bubble robot is really simple when you're not handicapping yourself which is the obvious intended design, but yeah going buster only means that coming down from the ceiling WILL result in you being hit, which is admittedly dumb even if they weren't intending for you to play that way.

I like Megaman 1 a lot but I tend to favor simplicity. While aspects of its design are flawed I find it to be quite possibly the easiest of the classic titles if playing it normally (that is to say, not abusing metal blades in 2 for example) despite that so I can forgive it for those since it doesn't cause it to be unfairly hard or anything. For being the first of its kind it got a ton right and not too much wrong.

Ah, Mega Man 2, the one everyone calls the “Hot Shit”. Mechanic-wise, this pretty much plays the same as the first game with just a bit more polish. The only new feature that would make a Mega Buster run any easier are the E-tanks, which, if used effectively, could give you two whole life bars for bosses….when I remember to even use them, at least. This is also the only game until MM9 to have a difficulty selection, but….it basically doesn’t matter. Difficult is the default difficulty for the Japanese version, and I assume Normal, where all enemies and bosses’ health was halved, was Capcom USA’s kneejerk reaction to give Western gamers a bit more of an edge after MM1’s nonsense.



As for the zen of stage selection, luckily there’s no powerups locked behind RM weapons like the Magnet Beam, so what stage you want to beat first largely depends on how many E-Tanks/1-ups you want to collect. Heat Man carries Item 1, and Item 2 is locked behind Air Man (and Item 3 doesn’t matter for now, there’s basically nothing it can do that Item 1 can’t). So, giant desk fan it is!



Air Man is technically pretty short, only 3 screens besides the boss corridor and Air Man himself, but the kicker is that 2 of those are long-winding hallways. Half of the stage will take place on these giant tiki heads, with horns regularly retreating from them. It is safe to jump over them, but be cautious, as when you’re standing on them, these Gremlins can will start coming from the sides. Luckily, they only die in one hit, but it’d still be safe to be completely sure there’s none of them coming before you jump off the Tiki Head. Next, you’ll come to a section where you must defeat these enemies called Lightning Lords to jump on their cloud platforms (and no they’re not random, thank fucking God). You should be able to kill the first few no problem, but after the third or fourth one, they’ll be too high for you to get with the Mega Buster and they’ll start throwing their lightning bolts. Try to avoid them with the limited space you’re given, but it shouldn’t be the end of the world if you’re hit by this, thanks to knockback being drastically reduced from the last game.



After blowing off some harmless Fan Fiends, it’s time to meet these godforsaken birds. You’ll be up to your neck in half a dozen hard-to-hit mini birds if the egg is dropped, so jump and shoot as much as possible to kill the mother birds the instant they come on screen or, failing that, the egg, as they both go down with one shot. On the bright side, though I’m not saying this is recommended, the rate at which enemies drop items has gone up significantly, so one egg’s worth of mini-birds has a good chance at leaving you with some goodies. Once you ignore the worms on the next screen, the last hallway is just more of the tiki heads, birds, and Fan Fiends, so it should be smooth sailing.



Now, Air Man is kind of, kiiind of a pain in the ass, in case you weren’t aware. Not in the unpredictable sense like Elec Man or the CWUs, but more in the sense that his mini-tornado patterns are nearly impossible to dodge. So my strategy? Don’t dodge them. Yeah, you heard me right. Normally, lemon shots bounce off the tornadoes and by the time you attempt to jump through one pattern, you’ll barely have enough time to try to attack him before he comes up with another one. So, harnessing the magic of invincibility frames, you’ll get hit by a tornado so you can walk past the tornadoes and shoot at him carefree. The one safe period is when after he’s fired three patterns and jumps to the other side of the screen, where he’ll completely miss you if you hug the corner of the wall he’s jumping to so you could nail him with more shots. When he does this, though, you’ll just have to jump over him when he blows away his first pattern so his oversized fans doesn’t slice you into ribbons. Other than that, though, you should be good.



Unfortunately, just about every part of Heat Man’s stage can give you a headache, thanks to annoying enemies and what I might consider to be one of the worst disappearing block sections in the series. It starts with these Prop Tops, who take like half a dozen hits to kill and don’t stop coming even if you kill one. For the first encounter, wait until the first one is about to jump on you and move between where it lands and the second one that spawns immediately after. Once that second one starts to rise is when you run like hell to the end of the hallway. This means running past these soda can enemies called Tellies unless they’re directly in your jumping path. At the end of the section are a couple of hard-to-avoid enemies called Spring Heads that, like the Spines from last game, get faster when you’re on the same floor they are. Unlike the Spines, however, they can’t be stunned when hit with the Mega Buster, so you’ll have to resort to the next best thing: off-screening. Walk left until they can’t be seen anymore, and when you walk back, they should be completely gone. Poof, like an angel’s kiss. If they’re not, though, try to jump over them as best you can.



After a simple disappearing block section, you’ll be at another hallway where you have to wait for some more blocks before jumping over the tower. However, it’s extremely easy for the Tellies to overrun you if you screw up, especially in this sort of run where they’re not likely to go into your straight line of fire. So, we’re going to have to use a slightly dirty trick: once you get to the second tower, equip Item 2 and use the flying platform to completely negate everything below you until the towers end. You might be thinking “but then how will I have enough energy to fly over this last disappearing block section?” Simple, we weren’t going to anyway! Once you know the pattern, it’s actually quite easy, for me at least, as long as you have a good sense of rhythm. The only reason it’s that bad in the first place is out of how trial-and-error it is; most of this section is either over a sea of instakill lava or a bottomless pit, and there’s a few patterns where a block pops up directly above you. The first two instances of these aren’t so bad, as they’re over solid ground, but the last one is over a bottomless pit, so you will die if you don’t expect it. Game design at its finest. Just to avoid any anxiety, this last pattern happens with the 4th block from the edge of the lava pit.



After that pain is over, you’ll come across the first Sniper Joe in the game, in a Sniper Armor. They’re basically the Big Eyes of this game, sponging damage, hitting hard, and almost impossible to jump under, but luckily, you have a ladder here to help you avoid his shots. Once you use it to destroy his discount AT-AT Walker, avoiding the regular Joe’s shots should be a breeze.



Heat Man’s stage is the inverse of Air Man’s; the latter is a simple stage with a brutal boss, while the former is a brutal stage with a simple boss. Heat Man can dish out damage the instant you come out that door with his barrage of fireballs, so right away you’ll want to jump between the two lowest ones, but thankfully, that’s the worst of it. After you shoot him once, he flares up and tries to run into you by turning into pure heat energy, and once you jump over this, you can shoot him again and start the process anew. What all would you expect from the only robot in the world shaped like a Zippo lighter? The only tricky thing about this strategy is that when he decides to ram into you is entirely random, so good reflexes will be needed for this, once again.

tbh i don't think mm2 is that great but i'm also a weirdo that really enjoys mm1 so my opinion on the classic games is clearly dubious at best

heatman's stage isn't that bad item-2less but there i go again thinking that enemies + bottomless pit sections are easier than everyone else believes. i will agree that airman weaponless is a complete fucko though, his attack patterns are insane.

throw a coin into the "funny zippo joke" jar

This post was last modified: Feb 10, 2020 at 1:31 PM by MoonAge.

Bubble Man gets too much hate, honestly. Would you drop a salmon on dry land and call it a useless pile of trash? Give Bubble Man some respect.



On the first screen, these Croakers can give you quite a bit of trouble when they spit these hard-to-hit tadpoles right when come on the screen. Luckily, they do have a loophole where they don’t summon more of their children until the ones on the screen are cleared, even carrying to other Croakers. So, you’ll want to have at least one tadpole on the screen at all times so the Croakers won’t attack you. This is easy enough for the second one, but for the third Croaker, you might have to wait a bit while the tadpole(s) follow you across the platforms. One of the more unconventional strategies in this game, clearly.



On the next screen, ignore those hermit crab enemies, as shooting them only removes their shells, causing them to go faster and be impossible to hit with the Buster. It should be advised that on the screen where you go underwater, you’ll want to submerge while hugging the left wall so you don’t get blindsided by jumping right on top of a hermit crab. Next, you’ll come across a bunch of shrimps being spat out by an angler fish so obese, it can’t even swim off the ground. The shrimp’s relatively large health pool and size makes them quite obnoxious when trying to deal with the angler fish’s small weak point, so it’d be best to stand close to its mouth so you can quickly deal with the shrimp and shoot the lantern weak point before any more spawn. The enemies that look like a cross between Metroids and the CWU boss from MM1 you see after this can be ignored, assuming they aren’t in your jump path (even then they only take one hit to kill). After another angler fish fight, you’ll be dealing with more Croakers, who are thankfully much less of a pain thanks to the water physics. The crabs in the final segment of the stage can be killed in one hit and aren’t bad at all, but just wait before jumping between platforms so you don’t get one dropped on your head, the little bastards. (Am I the only one who thinks this waterfall background is nauseating? Talk about Seizure Procedure.)



Bubble Man, while not as mindless as Heat Man or Crash Man, is still on the easier side of this game’s Robot Masters; he just requires a bit more patience, is all. Absolutely take advantage of this room’s water physics, as you can jump high enough to completely negate most of the projectiles Bubble Man loves to flood half of the screen with (but not too high, if you’ve noticed the spikes lining the ceiling. If you’re in the situation where you have to pass him by going under instead of above, it is helpful to know that the bouncing bubbles he summons do have a set pattern you can surmount with some timing. In terms of other helpful tidbits, he doesn’t shoot out his bullets until you line up with him, and he always shoots out no more than 4 at a time.



It’s probably a blessing we’re not dealing with Wood Man with Heat Man’s weapon like we’re supposed to. The last thing I need is Smokey the Bear on my ass.



The first enemies you come across are these Bobble Bats, which are basically like the Tellies from Heat Man’s stage only the fact that they’re hard to hit with the Buster is made worse when they take twice as many lemons to kill. Still, avoiding them probably isn’t the best way to go about things when they share this segment with these rabbit enemies, which can’t be killed until they shoot at least one of their carrots. At the very least, clear whatever screen you’re on of the bats so things are less cluttered when you deal with the rabbits.



Next, you have these panther minibosses that can be quite the foe with their unusual attack pattern. For this first screen, after jumping down from the ladder, drop to the next incline so you can simply jump straight up to avoid its fireballs. The next one requires a bit more dexterity, as you have to jump right over its fireballs and walk left between attacks (this can still be a pain with its random fireball lengths, though). The third and last screen leaves you much less elbow room, but jump straight up right in the middle of the center platform and you shhhhould be good.



On the next platform, these monkey enemies are ultimately harmless as long as you keep your distance. What you don’t want, however, is for them to gang up on you with the bird enemies returning from Air Man’s stage, so wait for one of them to spawn and be killed before you progress further to deal with one of the monkeys. The next troublesome screen is the stairwell with the rabbit, where you’ll need a tight jump to get over it. Finally, the last hallway has these chicken enemies that will jump right over you so long as you stand completely still.



Wood Man speaks for the trees, and the trees are fucking pissed. Obviously, he’s invincible when his Leaf Shield is out, and the only time you’ll be able to have your chance with him is the few seconds after he fires it….which is easier said than done with the falling leaves that have giant hitboxes. Dodging them is going to require a fair amount of luck, but it’s generally best to jump to avoid them when they’re low to the ground. As if he isn’t enough of a buzzkill, he jumps slowly but surely towards you after each shield he fires, and eventually, he’ll be close enough to the point where it’s impossible to jump over said shields. Here, it’s completely necessary to get yourself hit and use invincibility frames to get to the other end of the stage. Ironically, he’s easier to deal with here now that his falling leaves can’t reach you, so all you’ll have to worry about are his Leaf Shields and by this point, his HP should be low anyway.

they had mega man 2 for iphone and the only free stage was wood man
when i got bored id go beat his ass with shitty touch controls
i suck at the rest of the game but i can assure you: wood man's stage is nothing

those bats at the beginning are pretty annoying to dodge actually. you barely have enough room to maneuver around them. they do fuck all damage though so you can reasonably tank it
i love the fire dogs. that's peak mega man to me. they just made a big graphic that shoots fireballs in a sine wave, but they can rearrange the platforms so that you get three different fights out of them. im glad this is mm2, the later ones would've put fucking pits or spikes or both on the third iteration
the sky part of the stage always seemed weird to me. i get the forest and cave sections, but the floating sticks are a real stretch for a wood-based level. enemies kind of suck too. the monkeys perfectly hide from your shots like nathan drake and the birds can get way out of hand. if you have their entire family of octuplets onscreen the game lags the fuck out and you're basically guaranteed to get hit. i will say though, you feel godlike if you snipe the egg out of the air, just like DmC vergil.

somehow ive beaten woodm'n without getting hit but i can't remember how. dodging the falling leaves is iffy af on a touch screen and even the wood shield is a pretty tight jump. i think the main thing is that you can mash him down super quickly. he barely moves and his wood shield is about as useful as the shield from bloodborne. overall he's a huge bitch and air man ga taosenae way overhypes him. fuck air man himself though that shit is pure luck

thank you for your insight, aidan. i never considered how bad this game would be on mob-

i will say though, you feel godlike if you snipe the egg out of the air, just like DmC vergil.

Blocked.

What the hell does a "Crash" Man do, anyway? His bomb doesn't crash things, it-ah, forget it.



As a homage to Elec Man, this stage is another tower ascent. Also like Elec Man, this stage loves to put you in situations where you can't defend yourself with just the Mega Buster. After a few screens of Tellies, you’ll get to meet this game’s version of the Mets, in my opinion the worst ones in the classic series just out of how fast its bullets are and how instantly it fires them after revealing its weak spot. For these first three, at least, you have the advantage of them being on a ledge, so just duck under their center bullets and wait until they run towards you to attack. the next few screens has more Tellies while you’re waiting to get on the lifts, and like Heat Man’s stage, it's easy to get swarmed by then while waiting for access in the next part. I would 100% suggest using Items 1 and 2 to get to the ladders early. The Blocky on the first lift-less screen has a problem where you have to exactly where its flying parts will land, but fortunately, it's the only one of its kind like this, so it’s fine if you get hit.



2 screens later, you have this downright dickish Met placement where you have to craftily dodge its bullets to keep your pace on a tight-spaced platform. Once again, use Item 2 to avoid it entirely. Killing Air Man first was good for one thing, at least. When you get to the screen with the two ladders in the center, climb the left one and fire to the right. You’ll know why one screen later: it’s the return of the Pippis from Air Man’s stage, and there is no feasible way to prevent it from hatching its egg high up there and no way to protect yourself from hits with just the Mega Buster. So, just before this first batch of mini-birds gets you, jump to the ladder on the right and they should avoid you, and then proceed to take the ladder routes on the right. So long as you’re facing to the right, the Pippis will always drop their eggs into the void next to the tower, and you can ascend the tower stress-free. A few screens later, feel free to grab the E-Tank if you want, just keep in mind you’ll need Item 1 to get back up. Is using E-Tanks illegal for these runs? I don’t know. Use Item-2 for the next ladder if you need the 1-up, but you’ll want to go back and take the other ladder if you do so you’ll have an easier time with the Prop Tops.



Ladies and gents, meet one of the most monotonous Robot Masters in the entire Classic series. Crash Man is a one-trick pony: you shoot towards him, he jumps up and shoots a Crash Bomb at you. Sometimes, when he feels adventurous, he likes to jump when you aren’t shooting at him. There’s nothing much to this fight; since he jumps as you shoot, you’ll want to jump and time your firing just right so he runs right into it, and you’ll be able to dodge his bombs just fine. Unfortunately, he’s one of this game’s Robot Masters to only take one bit of damage per shot, and since you’ll only be able to hit him once before he drops his bombs, you’ll be in for an easy, albeit tedious fight.



You know, let’s get Metal Man out of the way before the….next two stages. Much like Cut Man, it’s no surprise that the stage for the RM that’s supposed to be beaten first is the easiest stage in the game. There’s not a lot to talk about here because of that, so I’ll just provide basic enemy tips:

Moles (the drill enemies): These blokes take more hits to kill than their sizes suggest and there’s so damn many of them. Instead of going in guns ablazing, take the patient route and wait until there’s none in your way.
Gear Jesters: Try to aim for the gears, if you can. If you kill the jesters first, you’ll have less time to destroy the gears and you might have to make a tight jump.
Blockys: This time, you at least have the walls to hug when the blocks come flying.



People always rave on and on about the Metal Blade, but Metal Man himself is probably my favorite boss fight in the game. He’s a fun kind of chaotic. He’s not even that harmful, his buzzsaws not being that much damage, but you’ll still want to jump over no more than two of them, as the third blade’s higher trajectory if he fires it can easily nail you. It’s best to fire at him when you’re falling down from your jumps, and when you’re not firing or jumping, walk left, no matter what direction the conveyor belt’s going. Otherwise, you probably wouldn’t have as much room to dodge his blades. He only takes one bit of damage per shot as well, but as you’ll be shooting more often, he’ll go down in no time. Hell, you won't even need the 2 E-Tanks this stage provides you. This is a tutorial stage, alright.

You seem to have a lot of difficulty with the vertical stages. Maybe it's because of your Item use over the years acting as a crutch.............................................

Crash Man's AI is hysterical. I love him.