Beat in slow motion 30 frames per second mode. I vaguely recall playing this as a kid but no idea how far I got. I first went after top man because that was the dumbest concept there. He was easy to beat. Next I went for snake man because I figured top crushes snake. That was not true but the …
Beat in slow motion 30 frames per second mode. I vaguely recall playing this as a kid but no idea how far I got. I first went after top man because that was the dumbest concept there. He was easy to beat. Next I went for snake man because I figured top crushes snake. That was not true but the top spin did help somewhat. The biggest problem with the spin was that it did not prevent contact damage, limiting its usefulness. The snake shot crawled along the floor and up walls, making it great for lower elevation enemies. I next went for shadow man as I figured search snake would counter stealth. No, but he was weak to top spin. The shadow star was awesome, being able to be shot straight, up, and diagonal up, and returning like a boomerang. It was very useful for hitting higher elevations. I figured shadow would counter light so spark man was next. I was right. The spark shot was just a variant of the standard shot. Next was magnet man since I figured electricity would mess up magnetism. Right again. The magnet missiles were homing but cost a lot of energy. It was a toss up whether magnet would counter needle man or hard man. I went for needle first and was wrong. He was tough to defeat as I used magnets and then snakes. Again his shot was straightforward like the basic shot. Then I did hard man who was the correct choice for magnets. His punch was a slower straightforward shot. Last was Gemini man, who had the most difficult stage and was the toughest boss so far. He was weak against snakes though so I kicked his ass. His shot was straightforward but could bounce off walls at odd angles.
I think the best order would be: top, shadow, spark, magnet, hard, snake, Gemini, needle.
Then were the 4 revisited stages with the bosses from Mega Man 2. And here I was thinking the platforming in this game was much easier than the last. It was cool to fight the previous bosses using new weapons, trying to figure out which were the best. Though since none of the new weapons hard countered them, they were a little tougher than before. Especially quick man was one of the hardest bosses in this game, the bastard. Then I beat the rest of the bosses without too much trouble, heavily favoring the shadow shuriken for its ability to shoot up. Overall the weapons in this game were a little less fun than the previous because most were simple straight shots with no aiming. I prefer more versatile things, like the shuriken, metal blade, snakes, bubbles, leaf shield and homing missiles. I did use a few E tanks throughout the game, finishing with 9. I especially liked how weapon energy was not restored between the final stages, making rationing and going for energy restore items more important.
This game was a bit better than Mega Man 2, with less obnoxious platforming, more interesting platforming (from the flying jet, though I never used the middle rush form for a boat), and much more content. The enemies and bosses were also better designed and more fun to fight, and the slide was very handy.
9.2/10
