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I can't remember these levels well enough to make an informed decision, so, uh...  (This is a vote for Beetle Lady and Tide Man)
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Sep 17, 2022 04:19
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Of the four robot masters who got kidnapped during the intro stage, two of them were Fire Man from MM1 and Skull Man from MM4, but the others are more obscure. As far as I know, Honey Woman is an original creation for this game, but she has a lot in common with Hornet Man from MM9. Meanwhile, Dagger Man is from another fangame, Mega Man: Super Fighting Robot (you guys might enjoy that one too). This game honestly does a good job of balancing the two characters, as you've already noticed. It tends to break down a bit along the lines that Roll is better at getting to bosses while Rock is better at killing them, but there are definitely parts of stages where the charge shot makes things much easier, and some bosses' attacks are a lot easier to avoid with the double jump. I remember Ghost Woman being one of the tougher stages, I think I might've left her for last? I don't think this is quite so bad as starting with Torch Man, at least. And of course the Castlevania aesthetic is great.
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Sep 19, 2022 23:38
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Well, now you know about the two major types of secrets/collectibles in the game: allies and letters. There's one letter in every stage, but only half the stages have a hidden boss that becomes an ally. (Interestingly I think they all fight differently from their original versions, as we saw with Skull Man here: they're still recognisable, but they have new moves and patterns.) I won't spoil what finding any of these does. Ghost Woman is tough, good luck. I assume you've already recorded a bit ahead so I'm not sure if telling you now will be helpful, but there's an infinite 1-up trick in this stage that might make things less painful for you going forward: In one of the narrow corridors, you'll find a purple bat. This bat has an extremely high chance of dropping a 1-up, and it's easy to respawn it by scrolling back and forth, so you can grind to a full stock of 9 lives in minutes.
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Sep 22, 2022 03:15
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So, for that corridor with the spiky roomba thing that's been infuriating you... I'm pretty sure what you're actually supposed to do is back up until it changes direction, then follow it until you're past the spikes. You don't need to do short hops to get past it unhurt. On the other hand, that was an impressive showing against Ghost Woman! I usually have a lot more trouble with her, I'm not good at dodging the Soul Traps (and I rarely manage to escape via button mashing, I just assume I'm taking the hit if I get caught). On Ghost Woman's patterns, you mentioned getting thrown off by that at first. As best I can tell, she just randomly chooses between the two attack sequences (appearing in front of you and throwing Soul Traps, or appearing in the window and releasing ghosts) each time. You guys did figure out that she only does the tackles if you get caught. I think there's a minor tell in that she stays invisible longer between attacks if the next attack is Soul Trap versus the ghosts?
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Sep 24, 2022 00:43
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FYI, the video title for this update on youtube still says Ghost Woman. I like this level but I definitely thought starting with these two was a bit cruel; that said, Reactor Man's stage is pretty fair with how it uses the instakill beams, and they make for some neat puzzles (and, with that one exception, always start you in a safe location to assess the next challenge). I'm not surprised you didn't catch it, I certainly didn't on my first go-round, but there's a trick to the Reactor Man fight: he has a tell that visually indicates when the laser shots are going to come out, if you look closely at his gun you can see a charge metre that fills up before each shot. This fight gets a lot easier once you know about that and don't have to rely on audio cues.
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Sep 27, 2022 00:00
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You know, I'm pretty sure I've seen the same anglerfish concept (with a giant energy refill for the lure) in at least one other Megaman game, and I can't for the life of me remember whether it was an official game or another fangame. It's a pretty clever idea, I've always enjoyed it. You've been asking some questions about mechanics and I'm not sure if you actually want to know the answers or not, so I'll put them behind spoiler bars. On what the allies do: They help you out during the Fortress stages, and each of them gets you access to a path you couldn't otherwise take. Corollary to that: Each of those optional paths leads to a lock. If you open all four, you unlock a bonus level where you play as Protoman. I think you get a better ending if you beat it? On the letters: they first appeared in Megaman 5, IIRC, and collecting all eight (to spell MEGAMANV) unlocked Beat. I know they appeared again in Megaman 7, and you could spell RUSH to unlock the Super Adaptor (one of those weird things where Rush turned into a suit of armour, and you got a homing rocket punch). I don't remember them appearing in other official games, but they might have; fangame creators really seem to like them, though. In this one they unlock some neat upgrades, they're worth picking up. Rock's upgrade gives another stage of charged shot, and Roll's gives you a bit of extra air on the double jump. On the W tank: IIRC, you were under the impression it refills only one weapon. It refills all of them at once.
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Oct 4, 2022 00:37
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Can't you press the fire button to burst the bubble early, and hit Drake Man with the explosion without crashing into him? I seem to remember that being how it worked, but it's been a while since I played this and I could be remembering wrong. I agree that Drake Man buster-only isn't too bad though. He doesn't have a lot of attack patterns and they're very consistent, so once you get the timing down for dodging the falling flames and jumping his fire breath he really can't do anything to you. I'm pretty sure he was one of my preferred candidates to start with, though the level's still a huge pain and you have to return for the secrets later.
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Oct 11, 2022 13:13
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Yeah, Missile Man is the easiest level and boss IMO, I often start with him. (Edit: this is even taking account for the parachuting death spikes, which are more frightening than they are actually dangerous. You did correctly identify them, though, they are 100% functional death spikes.) I'm not 100% certain, but I think the letter you missed is behind one of the waterfalls near the end of the stage. It's a sneaky one. Also, it might not be a bad idea to try finding the remaining Allies before starting the fortress sequence. Explopyro fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Oct 13, 2022 |
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Oct 13, 2022 00:25
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I think my overall feeling is that Ghost Woman's stage is the hardest, too. But there are a bunch of tough ones; I'd honestly forgotten how tight a lot of the timing in Drake Man's stage is, for instance, and that might edge it out. Btw, while you're doing your roundups, you might want to revisit Ghost Woman's stage. There isn't anything progression-related, but there's a secret easter egg that's pretty neat. (Remember the extra life on a spike trap? Get on top of the ledge just past that life using Rush or Beat and go left.) Also, you can use the grinding spot there to get up to 9 lives for the fortress stages. As mentioned, enemies in Fire Man's boss corridor is a reference to the first Megaman game (which Fire Man, of course, is from), where that was a thing that happened.
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Oct 15, 2022 16:25
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Heh, I saw Dennis himself commented on your video to say quite a few of the things I was going to. (Dagger Man and the mechanics of his sublevel are a reference to the fangame Mega Man: Super Fighting Robot, I can see how they'd feel weird and out of nowhere if you haven't played that.) The dummy Knight Man is beating up looks like Yamato Man; both of them are from MM6. (IIRC Yamato Man's weapon was Knight Man's weakness, hence why he'd be training against him!) There's some really cool stuff coming in the fortress stages and the way they utilise the fact you have two characters, I can't wait to see you guys play through it.
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Oct 18, 2022 23:01
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Now that you've gotten to the piston/crusher section, I can say I remember finding this to be the hardest stage in the game, and my least favourite from a gameplay standpoint. The timing is really tight, I'd say at least a hair too tight; it's definitely doable, but it's not challenging in an interesting way (or a way that feels satisfying to finally pull off), it just kills you a lot and gets frustrating. From a theming/atmosphere standpoint, this stage is great, but the pistons are awful and definitely the low point of the game. The good thing is that the rest of the fortress feels much fairer from here out, if I'm remembering right. (And it's a minor mercy that you get this one out of the way at the beginning; I definitely made sure I replayed a few times until I managed to do it with a decent stock of lives remaining.) I also think it helps a little that if you get frustrated, you can take a break and go do Roll's stage. If you get a game over here, you keep your progress but will start with 2 lives when you continue. (You also don't lose your E tanks or anything, though you won't be able to get them back easily either, so that might be worth keeping in mind.) If you decide to leave and go farm lives, then you'll have to start from the first stage again.
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Oct 22, 2022 03:54
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Wow, those were some close calls with the spikes! Roll's level isn't too bad otherwise, though, there's definitely more margin for error than there was in Rock's. The only weakness I know of for the Met Grabber is Soul Trap, though I do ultimately agree it's probably easier to fight it with the (charged) buster.
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Oct 27, 2022 02:53
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This is a really neat boss fight, but it's unforgiving to learn because (thanks to the pits) a lot of mistakes end up turning into instant death. I don't know how far ahead you've recorded, but the best advice I could give for this one is to take your time and focus more on staying alive than trying to get hits in. (Which I know is even harder when you get into frustrated/tilted mode after repeating the level so many times! Um.) The weakness situation for this boss is also interesting, a lot of weapons have unorthodox effects in this fight depending on how and when you use them... I think I tend to prefer fighting it with the buster though.
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Nov 1, 2022 03:07
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Well-played, this level seems to have given you a lot less trouble. I do think you made a few of the jumps harder on yourselves by not destroying some of the boxes, but what you did seems to have worked just fine in the end. The boss is a neat concept (and variation on a classic Mega Man boss, too). Changing patterns each phase was an interesting twist to put on this one. The next level up is my favourite in the game.
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Nov 5, 2022 19:07
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This is my favourite level. It's really well done as far as puzzle levels go, it's not that hard to figure out what you have to do, but figuring it out really makes you feel clever (and it makes you recontextualise things again and again, and change how you interpret parts of the screen). It's just really excellent design all around (and the music's great too). The only thing I don't like in this level are the baby Yellow Devil enemies, but that's more because they're annoying than an actual design complaint. It feels to me like they spend a bit too long being invincible, to the point it's not worth bothering to fight them since you can just run past; they just end up being a weird kind of obstacle.
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Nov 9, 2022 01:23
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So, yeah, this Protoman level is the reward for saving the allies and opening all four locks. It's pretty tough, but it's fair and learnable, and it's an absolute nostalgia blast with how much it calls back to the first ever Wily Fortress in aesthetics, mechanics, and enemy types. I don't think you guys have picked up on this, but his buster is slightly different from either Rock's or Roll's: Protoman can only have two bullets on screen at once, compared to the siblings' 3. And, as you did pick up, he charges faster than Rock and has the upgraded charge shot, and takes extra damage like Roll. Protoman may not get access to the Robot Master weapons Rock and Roll have acquired, but he does use their same pool of E/W tanks (though obviously, he shouldn't use a W tank). When I was playing through this the first time, I don't think I realised I could get game overs and continue (and use this to grind E tanks), so I started with 9 lives, practised every level and saved all my E tanks for this and the upcoming levels. That said, I don't think it's too hard to get good enough at this boss that you shouldn't need them, it takes some time to learn the patterns but once you do it's honestly not that bad. (It's a real marathon of a fight though, and you need to learn new patterns each phase, which makes it easy to trip up.) Good luck!
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Nov 12, 2022 16:50
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...Oh. Oh no. You're going to miss those E-tanks later. I'm usually okay using one in this fight but I really want to have at least two on hand (one each for Rock and Roll) for the Wily Machine fight (is that even a spoiler?). I understand the temptation though, the Copy Robot fight is long and while it's definitely learnable, it can get tedious slogging through the phases you know to practise the next one. (That said, as seems to be a trend with this game, Roll is by far the trickiest to beat.) You're also not screwed. There is a place where you can grind E-tanks coming up, though it's decently well hidden and I don't remember if I actually found it myself. (And I think it's after the Rematch Room.)
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Nov 15, 2022 03:42
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I think some of these criticisms are at least a bit unfair. For one thing, unlocking the Protoman stage means you will not have to fight the extra bosses in that run (you need to save all four allies and unlock their respective locks to make that level available). And also, with a bit of practice the Copy Robot fight is very readable, and not that hard to get through without spending E tanks. Also, I'm not convinced these are actually tougher versions of the Robot Masters. It all just feels like a pretty standard rematch stage to me (with the added gimmick of having to swap between Rock and Roll each attempt, which I thought was a neat twist).
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Nov 17, 2022 22:43
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This is a really creative Wily Machine fight, and as a concept I love it, but as a player I mostly found it frustrating. I really had a hard time with this one, and it's the single fight in the game where I felt like the limit of 3 E-tanks might be too few. You're limited to a fairly small space, the attacks have lots of spread, and you need to be in very specific locations (with the right timing) to do damage at all. It's just a lot happening at once, and it's easy for mistakes to snowball in a way I found frustrating (oops, I got hit! now I fall off the platform and can't get back in time, the window closes again and I have to start the whole cycle over). You guys managed to sight-read it and catch on to how it works much faster than I did, though, so maybe you won't feel like you're bashing your heads against the wall as long as I did. (I do really hope you stumble upon the weakness for phase two, because I think you'll enjoy seeing it, but it's kind of obscure.)
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Nov 22, 2022 22:39
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 02:17 |
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Thanks for another great LP! This was fun, I really enjoyed getting to experience this game again with you (and seeing Dennis' comments on the videos, he was a really good sport). I'm glad you came out positive on the game and it helped get your LP energy back; I was getting a bit worried for a bit, with how frustrated you were getting in the early Wily stages. This game really doesn't pull a lot of its punches. berryjon posted:So how does this end if you don't get Proto out? I mean, yes, Lilght recovers and repairs all the captured Bots, but without Proto in the way, Doesn't Wily escape? As far as I know, there's a "bad" ending where Wily gets away. I've never seen it, though (every playthrough I've watched did it this way, as did I when I played it myself), so I don't know the details of how it goes.
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Nov 25, 2022 19:33
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