Beat in 30 frames per second mode. I started with tomahawk man and he was easy to beat with charged shots and jumping or sliding as needed. His axe weapon was a worse version of the gyro shot in that it shot horizontally then automatically curved up vertically, unlike the gyro which was commanded to go up or down. It …
Beat in 30 frames per second mode. I started with tomahawk man and he was easy to beat with charged shots and jumping or sliding as needed. His axe weapon was a worse version of the gyro shot in that it shot horizontally then automatically curved up vertically, unlike the gyro which was commanded to go up or down. It was good for hitting higher up enemies. Then I did centaur man as I figured tomahawk might beat horse. No but he was still fairly easy. His freeze attack was the usual screen clearer, which I only used once in a stage. Next was wind man as I figured he would be the fastest and thus most vulnerable to being stopped. I got that one correct. His wind weapon fell with gravity and traveled along the floor. Next I did blizzard because I figured it would counter fire and fire would counter plant. I was wrong. It is always a toss up whether ice beats fire or fire beats ice. I figured I was wrong when I seen ice pillars blocking optional paths. The ice weapon shot 4 projectiles in a vertical line spread and could be useful for hitting above and below. Fire man was weak against wind not ice, so he was easy. The fire shot fired in a ballistic arc, so affected by gravity like wind, then made a little flame pillar. Lots of attacks for hitting lower elevation enemies in this game, but they were almost never needed. Plant turned our to be weak to ice, so I was not too wrong. His weapon was another leaf shield but without the ability to shoot it. Next was Yamato man only because I wanted to save the knight for last. Axe beat spear, and spear beat mace so it worked out well. The spear was a fast simple horizontal projectile while the mace could be aimed diagonally but had limited range before it came back like a boomerang.
The ideal order according to a guide: fire, blizzard, plant, tomahawk, yamato, knight, centaur, wind. However I found tomahawk harder with the plant shield because his attacks were easier to avoid at max range. My preferred order might be: tomahawk, yamato, knight, centaur, wind, fire, blizzard, plant. However, fire and plant gave the 2 special rush adaptions so starting with fire might be overall better. I did not find the power mode useful for combat as it did not have higher dps than spamming regular shots in standard form, and the shots had limited range. It was good for smashing blocks to open up optional paths. The jetpack was my favorite thing in the entire game, being a ton of fun to use. I used it to skip platforming, get optional loot, hit higher enemies and even skip enemies. Even better that these forms recharged energy quickly and infinitely rather than needing pick ups like the weapons and rush in previous games. I only got 1 letter for Beat.
Despite liking the alternate paths and awesome jetpack, the game was far too easy. I hardly used the boss weapons outside of boss fights and was not hard up for ammo until after the robot boss gauntlet. The robot bosses were too quickly defeated by their counter, and the castle bosses were not difficult at all. The game really needed a hard mode. One of the weaker NES Mega Man games but still among the best games on the system.
8.0/10
