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MEGA MAN 2 for iOS (iPod/iPhone): A Guide Version 1.1 - March 29, 2001 Mega Man 2, all the characters, themes, and names are the intellectual property of CAPCOM Series Creator: Inafune Keiji Soundtrack Composer: Tateishi Takashi "Ogeretsu Kun" DEVELOPERS: Tokuro Fujiwara for CAPCOM Some (including the Creator) consider Mega Man to be strongly based on "Astro Boy" created by Tezuka Osamu /=====================================================\ [ ] [ This guide is not an official/licensed publication;] [ This guide is not for distribution for profit; ] [ This guide must only be distributed freely; ] [ This guide copyright © 2011 Gabriel Arthur Petrie. ] [ eyenot@gmail.com ] [ ] \=====================================================/ _______________________________________________________ |[ Table of Contents ]================================| |[ Guide Version History ]============================| |[ Intro ]============================================| |[ Controls ]=========================================| |[ Basic Play ]=======================================| |[ Bosses ]===========================================| |[ Strategies ]=======================================| |[ Recommended Path ]=================================| |[ Dr. Wily's Bosses ]================================| |[ Tips ]=============================================| |[ Game Version Differences ]=========================| _______________________________________________________ |[ Guide Version History ]============================| Version 1.0 (Mar.28,2011) ... was full of errors, bad information, and an incomplete and bad walkthrough. Version 1.1 (Mar.29,2011) The biggest difference here is that I closed up the width of the text column, so that it's easier to see it all (without scrolling) in an iPod. And some characters aren't "real" fixed-width in iPod, and those had to be replaced. I went back through the game and came up with an "ultimate path", which strikes me as the best path laid out by the designers. I also tried to keep it relevant to the constraints you play under in the original NES version, so I'm pretty happy with it. If you came to this guide looking for that path: FM -> WM -> AM -> CM -> MM -> BM -> HM -> QM I added even more version differences (the last section) and fixed a lot of errors. I also decided to be more thorough with the walkthrough. _______________________________________________________ |[ Intro ]============================================| In the year 2009... CAPCOM released a version of Mega Man 2 that installs and runs on your iPod touch. So now you can play this amazing 1988 classic action platformer anywhere you go! Just like Mega Man! Like you absorbed Mega Man's Mega Power and now it's ready for you whenever you want! That's pretty close to augmented reality! You might be asking yourself, "why did I pay $2.99 at the Apple Apps Store for this game to be on my iPod?" Because! 1. This game woke a lot of people up to the full video and audio capabilities of the NES console. The most frequent comment I heard back in 1989 was "it looks so good it's like having Saturday morning cartoons except it's a GAME!" And we would play just to hear the music. "Which level do you want to go to? CRASH MAN!" (It's my favorite song in the game.) 2. Because you want to hear the Crash Man song (or any of the many songs in the game that are your own favorite) any time you want, wherever you are! 3. Because you like the original so much and the differences that CAPCOM put in -- like returning to boss levels or any Wily level after you beat them -- make it totally irresistable. Mega Man forever! 4. This iPod version shows a lot of insight and foresight on behalf of the programmers. Things that frustrated players in the original game were changed or taken out, mostly towards the easier end. The result is instant fun. _______________________________________________________ |[ Controls ]=========================================| The built-in help file is pretty straightforward. You can set the screen to be locked into vertical vs. horizontal ("portrait" vs. "landscape") or leave it so that whichever way you tip the screen it will adapt. The game play screen will be the same size either way, but the controls will be a little bit different. In portrait mode, your controls are a traditional arcade joystick and two red buttons. Those are set into a dashboard that has artwork from the game. The stick and buttons are set close together, and the two buttons are exactly side-by-side. I found the portrait mode controls a little difficult to get used to, and I usually play with the game locked into the other orientation, landscape. Here you have a directional pad (also known as a d-pad or cross-pad) on the left side of the screen, and two blue buttons set diagonally next to each other on the right side. I found this much easier to use. In landscape orientation you might find (as I have) that holding your thumb on the touch screen isn't very accurate or fast. Maybe my thumb is getting old. So I found the controls are very easy to master using the tips of pointer and middle finger, holding the right side of the case between your thumb and ring finger. * Another way to hold it would A ___ *\ involve putting the ring B _(__ o)*o) finger over the pad and the (___o)\ \ |\ thumb underneath. That way *********\ \ | | may be more free-flowing for (__ o)\_)^ ^ >^ ) some people and some qi. \ < | \_ / \( ) | illustration: how a robotic hand might grip the iPod to play this game in landscape orientation. You could also hold your thumbs underneath the pad and all your fingertips on top. Whatever works for you. The two orientations don't "flip"; in portrait the bottom is the same as your case bottom, and in landscape the left side is the same side as your case bottom. This is a little bit of a problem for me since I play with my headphones in (which, by the way, comes highly recommended for this game, because it is some of the best music in video game history) and my left hand has to get around the headphone jack for my thumb to reach the d-pad. Easily solved by an L-shaped plug. The directional control makes Mega Man run to the left or right, climb up or down, fire one way or the other. Most weapons only fire in the direction you're facing. A few (like Metal Blade) fire up, down, or diagonal. You fire weapons by pressing the (B) button. You change weapons by pressing the (PAUSE) button, which is in a different place depending on orientation. For portrait it's at the bottom right, for landscape it is at the top right. In the pause screen you use the pad to move to which weapon you want to use and you press (A) button to select it. The weapon "P" is your normal "Player" weapon (I suppose), the Buster Cannon. FINALLY, you can jump by pressing the (A) button!! (Jump command using another button on the controller is something invented by Yokoi Gumpei -- who as it happens also invented the cross-pad or d-pad NES controller. He invented the concept of jumping back when he was on the development team for the smash-hit arcade game Donkey Kong with Miyamoto Shigeru; one day he suggested that the character should be able to jump the barrels. The creator of Mega Man credits the roots of his design work to Mario from Donkey Kong and to Manga animation.) Besides the two orientations, there are also two control modes, and the details are covered in the last section, "Version Differences". I recommend playing Classic Mode (and Hard setting). As for options, and anything else, there's a great help file which you can access from the title screen! A very good thing to install, thanks to the programmers. _______________________________________________________ |[ Basic Play ]=======================================| You run, jump, climb and shoot your way through the level and at the end you reach a boss (behind a gate) that you have to beat. When you beat robotic bosses, you absorb their powers. Some things will appear in the level: E-Can, a glowing blue can of pure energy. You can carry up to four of these inside Mega Man, and if you ever need to refill your health meter, open the weapons screen (Pause) and select the blue dots -- ONCE. You'll use one E-Can for each time you hit the button, so be careful not to tap tap tap tap. I am more or less Especially Unsure of the location of all the E-Cans in the game. Most of them can be passed up and, if you spend some time, have a little patience, really enjoy the game and give it your best effort, you will be able to beat the game without ever using a single E-Can, and without losing a single life (unless you intendod to). Even though this is true, grabbing an E-Can makes your chances of survival much higher!! That means you can get through the game more readily. Health Pellet, a blinking black and white ball. If you pick one up, it fills up some of your health. The bigger ones fill up more. Energy Pellet, glowing the same color as Mega Man. This one fills the energy bar for your current weapon. The Head of Mega Man, this gives you an extra play. Try to collect all these things! They also fall at random out of defeated enemies. _______________________________________________________ |[ Bosses ]===========================================| This is the greatest thing about the Mega Man series: you get to choose which order to play the levels in! In the original, it was a pretty big deal which order you would play the game in. That's because originally, if you beat any level, you couldn't go back to it. So the choice you made had a huge impact on what you got in the game. If you did not get Crash Man early, you would miss out on short-cuts and items that the Crash Bomb lets you to get. If you didn't get the mobility "Items (1, 2, 3)" early, the same would happen. In this version, though, you get to return to any level after you beat it and get things you want. It's still sort of important to follow some loose strategy, because having the right weapons and items makes it easier to get through the levels and beat the bosses. And that is really what the game is all about! You can beat the whole thing without ever using anything but your main weapon (the Buster Cannon) and that's how I used to play, but I find it's more fun now to freely use all the different weapons and experiment with what effects they have on enemies and bosses. That being said, I'll describe the bosses. I don't know their real stories, there are guides about that, too. In fact if you want to find a whole lot of stuff about the Mega Man stories, histories, worlds and everything, check out the websites at the bottom of this guide. The basic idea is that Dr. Wily created these robots to cause problems, so I'll try to figure out their stories based on that context. Bubble Man ( BM ) This robot lives under the water. Obviously, it's a water proof robot. His own weapon won't work against him at all. His weapon is a falling, rolling bubble. He stays near a huge waterfall so he must have gone to take over a hydropower generator nearby. Air Man ( AM ) This robot lives up in the sky. He has a fan built into his chest. His weapon is a blast of tornadoes. His world is inhabited by robots that phase in and out of dimensions, and is a place with a lot of techno-supernatural activity. There are signs up to warn people that this is a place with demons. It seems like a very taboo place -- maybe he went there to command a weather manipulation facility. Quick Man ( QM ) This robot was made to cut things up really fast. It lives inside a partical accelerator or plasma fusion reactor or something with plasma going on inside of it. His weapon is loads of super-fast boomerangs. If it's a Tokamak he lives in, then maybe it's Flash Man's magnetic tracks that form the fusion torus? Heat Man ( HM ) This robot also apparently lives in a reactor but I think it's a fission reactor, because his weapon is known as "Atomic Fire". He's encased in a super- heavy suit and can actually turn into a stream of fire. Maybe he uses nanotechnology or spirit power. Probably good friends with Quick Man. They must be in the city's nuclear power supply to drain energy. Wood Man ( WM ) This robot lives in a metallic replica of a forest. There was a book written about that once, that you could replace the world with a virtual copy. But the Mecha Forest doesn't have to be made out of fractal geometry and digitally stored -- it could be made out of minerals! Could the Mecha Forest become a reality?! "Artificial Leaf Could Provide Cheap Energy" http://slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=artificial+leaf "Spinning the Sun's Rays Into Fuel" Science Magazine, Mar 28 2011 Maybe Wood Man is there to grab the energy from the leaves like ones developed at MIT? Anyways, his weapon is the game's purely defensive weapon: a spinning shield of leaves! It's also the "Green Technology" weapon, allowing you to switch it off without spending any energy. This is a major difference from the original! Metal Man ( MM ) This robot lives inside a giant machine full of cogs and dangerous moving parts. He throws gears! He's pretty slow compared to the other robots, sort of like a steam engine compared to a maglev train, or a delicate gearworks clock instead of a digital. His level has some potentially deadly obstacles. He's obviously there to throw a gear in the cogs. Flash Man ( FM ) This robot lives in something that makes Mega Man slide. It looks sort of like an alternating magnetic track (like the kind that runs a mag-lev train) and like it might be encased in ice. Maybe both! His amazing power is the ability to slow down everything else but himself! He fires a Super ... machine gun. Crash Man ( CM ) This robot lives in a high tower, so high the top of it is in outer space. I'm pretty sure this is a programmer. It lives in a tower made of tangled-up spaghetti code pipes and has the ability to demolish sections of walls, in order to fix the bugs and straighten up the problems. It's his choice whether the whole thing crashes or not! That's what it seems like, any ways. Or, it's a demolition bot. Whoever he is he has excellent taste in music! Dr. Wily This is the evil genius Mega Man is trying to stop. He can corrupt robots and turn them against people, or make his own robots and send them to wreak havoc. "He's psychotic! I'm not even sure I WANT to know what perverse plan his sick, evil brain is capable of conceiving. And to think he was once my closest confident..." -- Dr. Light on Dr. Wily (source: Mega Man the Movie) http://screwattack.com/videos/Mega-Man _______________________________________________________ |[ Strategies ]=======================================| As you might have guessed, some of these robots would not do well against one another if they fought. What if Heat Man went stomping through Wood Man's forest? Or swam through Bubble Man's watery complex? Luckily, Mega Man can absorb the powers from the boss robots without taking on their weaknesses! When you beat a boss, you get the weapon from the boss. If you beat Bubble Man, you get his bubble weapon. You can then take that to Heat Man and instead of having to shoot him some dozens of times with your Cannon, you can just hit him with a few Bubbles and he'll crack! Sometimes when you beat a boss, Dr. Light (the Creator of Mega Man) will show up and install a new Item into your hardware. These items are for extra mobility, and they allow you to access places you normally couldn't. After I go through some strategies for each level and boss, I'll lay out a few paths that I like to follow when I play. I'll use the boss' initials instead of the whole name, so I can fit the path on a single line. You'll find your own way, though, which is all the fun. Something else I'll discuss is Eating. That's what I call a tactic where you find a good spot with a regenerating enemy, camp there and destroy that enemy to fill your health and your weapons' energy meters, and to earn extra plays. There aren't good places to eat in every level, so levels that are good to eat at will be marked with stars, more stars meaning it's a better dining experience! :) "The tiny metal bird was * * * *!" -- Gourmand One thing I keep in mind is that a lot of new players would give up if the first level they go to is one of the hardest, and they couldn't get through. So one thing I did was to provide a difficulty rating for each level and boss, but, you really shouldn't give up. Just pick a different boss to go after, and if you beat it, maybe that weapon you absorb will give you what you needed to beat what you couldn't beat before! The numbers for difficulty rating are between one and four (1-4), four being harder and one being easier. I rate the levels based on annoyances, difficult spots, and so on, as if the player didn't have any weapons to use to make it easier. And I rate the bosses based on how hard they are to beat using just the Buster Cannon. A final note, when I describe a weapon as "expensive" that means it uses more of its energy bar per firing. "Cheap" ones are the Quick Boomerang and Metal Blade, which barely use any energy. "Expensive" ones are Leaf Shield or a full-blast Atomic Fire. { Boss (Weakness), Level Difficulty / Boss Difficulty } { ITEM # : an item you get if you beat this boss } { *stars if there's an eating spot, 1-4 stars* } { Strategy } Bubble Man ( MM ), 3 / 1 : * * Crab There's an easy spot near the end of the level where lots of crabs fall down the huge waterfall. You can wait around here and shoot them with your Buster Cannon to get a few quick supplies. * * * Frog If you manage to beat Wood Man before you come here, then get your Leaf Shield ready because it's time for Frogs' Legs wrapped in Leaves! Or something! When you get to a frog and need to fill up, turn on the leaf shield and let it burp machines on your head. You could walk away at this point and come back later with all the extra plays you could want. You can also shoot through all the frogs with a regular blast of Atomic Fire or with Metal Blade. The Leaf Shield also comes in handy against shrimps, but it's an expensive thing to use there. You'd be better of pulling out the Metal Blade which is cheap and just as effective. As it turns out, the Metal Blade is also effective agains Frogs and Bubble Man. So, it's a good idea to bring Metal Blade out here. This level has a long, submerged passage in it, lined with deadly spiked mines. You will probably either land on or jump up into several of them before you get it right. Just keep in mind the spikes are either against walls or else stuck to the ceiling. And you can tap the jump button instead of holding it down, and make a little frog hop instead of a mega leap. Air Man ( WM ), 3 / 3 : ITEM 2 : A hover board that flies in one direction. * * * * Bird If you beat Bubble Man or Wood Man, you can come here to easily fill up on little tiny birds. I dunno what kind, we'll just say Mecha Ortolan! MEGA YUM! When the mama birds approach, turn on the shield and reap the rewards. Another way to eat tiny mecha bird is to use Bubble Man's Lead. When the mama flies by and drops the egg, as soon as you see all the little Birds unfold from the egg and start coming toward you, drop a bubble on them and it will get them all. If you drop it too soon, a Bird or two that didn't fully hatch will get past it. And if you're too late, you get hit by the Birds. There are a lot of annoying giant red heads with horns that have gremlins pouring out of their ears, and you have to jump on these giant demon heads to get through the level. You can't have come here with the Item #2 (the Hover Board) because this is the boss you have to beat in order for Dr. Light to give it to you (not in the original you couldn't have.) If you revisit here after beating this level (perhaps to eat Bird) just use the hoverboard from a nice, high spot to get past a lot of annoying stuff. If you have the Leaf Shield, you can use it here to stand still and get your bearings without worry. There are some guys riding on clouds throwing lightning at you, and you need to get them off their clouds so you can ride those past a huge space without platforms. The best thing to use on these guys is your Leaf Shield -- contact with the shield itself destroys them instantly. Another thing to use on those guys is your Bubble Lead: wait until they are below you and drop the Bubble right on them. Quickly drop a bunch of bubbles and jump after them. Some huge blue robots with fans in their stomachs are waiting to try and blow you out of the air when you're trying to jump. One of them is placed in a really tricky way so that even if you destroy him, your backward momentum from his fan could still push you far enough back that when you run up again he is back again all fresh and new. Leaf Shield is stron against them but it's expensive. You could also use Flash to stop their blowing, run up close and get them with your Buster Cannon. The stompers at the end of the level can quickly destroy you if you aren't very quick with the Buster Cannon. You might prefer to use the Leaf Shield, again, or Time Stopper to just run past it. This level has benefits for you from both the Leaf Shield and the Bubble Lead, but you should bring the Leaf Shield because it's effective against Air Man. Quick Man ( FM ), 4 / 4 : This level is one of the two most difficult robot levels in the game. There are screens where huge beams of plasma cut through very quickly and will destroy Mega Man if he gets touched by them. You have two options: learn how to get through those rooms before the beams cut everything off, or, if you beat Flash Man, learn where the rooms are and turn on the Time Stopper -- no more worries! There is even one room where you have two options where to fall, and if you fall on the right side you get an Energy Can, a big Energy Pellet, and an extra play. It's on the right-side! There are a few big enemies here who could cause a lot of problems for you, but luckily they can all be instantly dispatched with the Air Shooter (if you beat Air Man). Use it on the Crucibles in the dark area throwing fire at you and the Walkers carrying the Shield Man around. Heat Man ( BM ), 4 / 2 : ITEM 1 : A hover pad that slowly floats upward. * Metal Hamburger Want slow food? There are dozens of holes in this level hosting Hamburgers -- Metal Hamburgers! They move really slowly and follow your position. They also have rotating eyes, so you might not feel great about eating them. They are easily removed with your regular cannon, just wait for some to come out of the hole and shoot the lead one. There are a couple of safe spots to fill up on these guys. You could also pull out the Leaf Shield shield and stand under one of their holes and munch on metal salad burgers! This is the other most difficult boss level in the game. You will run into some places where there are platforms only one block wide, which materialize and dematerialise in three phases, and which you need to jump on to get through the level and most of which threaten to toss you into a huge bottomless pit. If I wrote exactly how to get past them all it would require a special little language to describe the phases and probably a little map to read. Just give it a shot! You can technically get through it your first time if you watch carefully and get ready to jump up and land on a block right before it appears. If you use Time Stopper to stop the blocks, the problem is that the ones out of phase still aren't there. You need basically all of the blocks to get through the level, so Time Stopper won't really work to get past the dematerializing block parts! One thing that would work well, of course, is the Hoverboard (Item #2). You should drop it from a high spot so you don't smack into a materializing block. Every time you shoot Heat Man, he closes his shield and comes at you in the form of a stream of fire. You can jump over him, but then he tosses fire at you and you can only get in one hit at a time. So make it Bubble Lead! He can't stand against it. DON'T USE CRASH ROCKET ON HEAT MAN -- IT HEALS HIM!! Wood Man ( HM ), 2 / 3 : * * More Upset Birds If you brought the Metal Blade, use that against the Mecha Monkeys and the birds near the end if they give you any trouble. The birds here are not as easy to deal with as in the Air Man stage and so I usually don't come here to fill up. Since you're higher up they can run into you, the egg drops are shorter, and all the way at the end of the level. And these birds are likely to knock you in a pit. There are some fire breathing dogs in this level that are a real pain to get past, probably the hardest non-boss in the game. Well, besides Mega Man because no one harder than Mega Man. Mega Represent! All you can do is stand near the bottom of their arc of fire, jump up when it's coming and shoot when you jump. Or, if you brought Time Stopper with you, just turn it on while the dog is teleporting in (the same way you do, as a blue streak) and sneak past it in that form. You only get one chance to do that, so it helps to know which rooms the dogs are in. BE CAREFUL NOT TO TOUCH THE FROZEN TELEPORTING DOG. You will get stuck inside of it and the only way I found to get out is Leaf Shield, but that IS the Wood Man weapon! You can't technically have it, yet. There are some Rabbits in the level that are really dangerous. They shoot Missile Carrots!! Just fire at them with the buster cannon or drop bubbles on them. You can destroy Wood Man with two well-placed, full blast, Atomic Fire balls. Metal Man ( MM ), 3 / 1 : There are a few places in this level that can be either insanely hard to get through or very easy. The first spot is right at the beginning, where big crushers pound from the ceiling to the floor in a confined space. You have barely a moment to get past them while they're up, and you are trying to keep your balance on a rotating gear. The secret is to tap the pad to balance and tap the jump button to hop past the crushers when they are up, but if this is too much trouble, beat Flash Man and bring the Time Stopper with you. Stop the crushers when they're up and skip past them all. You'll also find the Time Stopper useful in the next spot, which is a bunch of Drillers drilling through the floors and the ceilings at random in a long, cramped passageway. They have really high stamina and usually aren't in front of you long enough to be shot through. If you're patient you can just wait for a gap and take it slowly. They will not drill through directly above or beneath you (unless they were already coming through there). If you just use the Time Stopper, you can run straight through here. You might as well bring Time Stopper to this level. Those two hard spots can easily destroy you even if you're good at the game, because they take patience. Just blow Metal Man away with your Buster Cannon. Or use his own weapon against him, it's his weakness. Flash Man, 1 / 1 : ITEM 3 : A magnetic lift that quickly climbs walls. This stage can be annoying because you slide around, but it's overall very easy. Flash Man is easy, too. You can get to this boss with only eight health bars and still destroy him using just the Buster Cannon. The level is built like a maze and if you take the correct paths you get some items and an E-Can. Since I'm directing you here before you get any mobility items, I'll let you know: when you get to a room with a walker and large Health Pellet, take the exit closest to the walker, and you'll be able to skip past a bunch of other walkers and get that E-Can. If you end up facing off against Walkers, it'd be nice to have the Air Blast, they're weak against it. But if you don't, try to take the right path to skip the most of them. As for that last walker, BE CAREFUL! Square off against it with just your Buster Cannon, and then take out the Shield man when he moves his shield. THEN BE CAREFUL! Don't miss the jumps or you will have to come back and face the walker AGAIN. Crash Man ( AM ), 2 / 2 ; There are some famous rooms in this level, where you have to hop on a platform that is riding on a track, and avoid Metal Hamburgers until you can ride it up to a ladder out of the room. You can lure the Hamburgers around and slip past them but that doesn't always work. The easy way is to put up your Leaf Shield and just ride the platform and not worry about the Hamburgers. If you come here without Item #1, you'll have a bit of trouble if you get to the top of the tower on the side where you pick up the E-Can. You'll either have to drop down all the way until you can cross over to the right side, or, you can pull out Item #2, jump and lay down a hoverboard, then jump again from the hoverboard and get to the ledge above! Crash Man is pretty tough, unless you beat Air Man and bring the Air Shooter. Then he's a breeze! _______________________________________________________ |[ Recommended Path ]=================================| PATH: FM -> WM -> AM -> CM -> MM -> BM -> HM -> QM Also get: #3 #2 #1 Weakness: (HM) WM AM MM BM FM Powers { FM WM WM FM WM WM FM useful { (AM) #2 #2 MM #2 AM in this{ (#1) FM level { (CM) Culinary: * **** *** ** Difficult: 1/1 2/3 3/3 2/2 3/1 3/1 4/2 4/4 This one's pretty straightforward. Flash Man is a piece of cake to get through, and then you can Time Stop in a bunch of tough spots. There's a 1up (extra play) you can get if you have Item #1, but you can get 1ups all throughout the game. There are crash barriers in Flash Man's level but they don't really lead any where. Wood Man's level isn't so easy, and neither is he. If you're persistent you can win, and you have an extra E-Can by now. After that the line-up takes out Air Man and Crash Man in order of weaknesses. Now you have the Flash and the Leaf Shield to make things easy (and dine well) and the Crash Rocket to get through some doors, all of which (except for the ones in Flash Man) are in remaining levels. The Metal Man level is easy and could've come right after Flash (for the hard spots) but there's an E-Can that you would need Item #2 from Air Man's level to earn without having to sacrifice a life in the process. In order of weakness on through Bubble Man and Heat Man, then Quick Man. This path will put the weapons and items you earn to the most use and you'll rarely find yourself sticking to Buster Cannon! Any ways, you can make up your own path! :) _______________________________________________________ |[ Dr. Wily's Bosses ]================================| The stages are pretty tough to get through, but you should be able to go to Bubble Man stage and eat Frogs to get all the extra plays you need. The only thing to really, really watch out for is the holographic level with the false floors. When you get there (you'll know it, you'll fall through a floor) try rolling the Bubble Lead across floors before you step on them, and it will reveal which sections of floor are false. Also look out for a room where you'll have to go up against all of the robot bosses, again, in one level. That means you won't get a health and weapons refill as you're used to. Each robot drops a large Health Pellet. It doesn't matter what order you face them in, because you're already well-equipped to deal with any of them! Besides those difficulties, Wily's stage has some bosses that are nothing like what you faced so far. First there's a dragon. It's hideously hard to beat compared to everything else in the game. And in the iPod version, it moves so fast you can barely tell what's happening. Just focus on not getting knocked off the platforms and staying on the top one and shooting the Dragon in the head. Use the Quick Boomerang to do the most damage in the shortest time. Then there is a room that comes alive and tries to crush you. If you use the Boomerang again, it gets rid of them the Quickest. They also speed up each time they come after you, so you have to be careful. They do a lot of damage if they crush you when they're forming together each new pair. If you want to get through them even faster, use Bubble Lead, but you will have to get close to use it (and might get struck). Then there's a giant tank with a giant replica of Guts Man (from Mega Man 1) built into it. Just jump up on the tank and smash its forehead with Quick Boomerang. You'll run into a room with a lot of walls and a lot of globes. Equip the Crush Rocket and take down only the walls that are really necessary, because you'll want the rest of the Crush energy to easily destroy the globes (one hit each). If you use a couple of your Item #1, you can get around some of the walls and save some of that energy. They'll shoot you no matter where you are, at timed intervals, so hurry up. Shoot the space ship in the front with whatever's strongest, then when you see Dr. Wily flying it in the cockpit window, shoot the window with Buster Cannon. Use your Bubble one more time against the Alien creature, it is actually the only thing that hurts it. _______________________________________________________ |[ Tips ]=============================================| -- If you're low on health or energy and need it to get through the level, find someplace where there are easy enemies that you can get to re-appear after you beat them, and keep beating them and collecting what they leave behind. -- Try different weapons on the different enemies and find out what works best and what's a good idea to bring through that level. -- Don't Panic! -- Be GREEN! If you need to use the Leaf Shield but it is low on Energy, instead of throwing it away, just switch it off when you're done using it. It'll literally help you save the planet!! _______________________________________________________ |[ Version Differences ]==============================| The game isn't exactly like the NES console version. First of all, you can select a different style of controls. If you want to, you can turn off "Classic Style" and control your Mega Man with a totally different set of physics. Instead of your jumps following parabolic curves, Mega Man will jump only straight up or diagonally, and will move more or less like he's under water. You can still change his direction while he's in the air. Some jumps that only take a quick tap to make will require holding the button a bit longer, especially if they are wider jumps since he's not following a curve, he's going up at a 45-degree angle. It's a little easier in some ways to play like this on your iPod touch, but the classic hasn't given me problems (in landscape orientation). Second of all, you can return freely to stages you've already beaten and they always have all their items intact. And, once you've beaten all the bosses, you can freely go back and forth from Wily's stages to the boss screen. And, you can also choose and return to any Wily stage after you beat it. All of this is intact until you beat the last Wily stage, then everything gets reset and you have to start a new game. Third of all, there's no more password. Instead, the iPod will store your progress. When you play, you choose to start a new game or to continue from the ongoing one. Tres chic! You can exit any level at any time. When you start your game, every time, you get to choose which difficulty level to play in, right off the bat. Easy, normal, or hard. The songs don't loop the same, and there's a little pause when they loop. But they still sound the same! Extra plays are much more numerous. Many enemies don't show up where they used to. The weaknesses and invulnerabilities for regular enemies aren't all intact. Some neat things are still there: for instance, if you shoot the hermit crabs with the Metal Blade, their shell will still come off, but Leaf Shields don't bounce off Frogs. Speaking of frogs, the little things that Frogs burp out (tiny Frogs?) don't jump in a perfect arc every time. They jump different ways and no longer can jump clear over Mega Man with the Leaf Shield running. And the Frogs don't burp to the right from the mouth, they end up burping from behind instead. Many enemies move slightly differently than original. The metal hamburgers aren't as numerous or as fast. The metal hoppers aren't as fast. Some enemies move extremely fast compared to the original game. The first Wily stage boss is really, really fast. The Shrimp are pretty fast. Some other enemies move faster, too. The Wood Man weapon doesn't behave the same. You can only shoot it up if you climb up or down a ladder, and you can't shoot it down. You can "switch off" the Leaf Shield by going back into the pause screen while it's running (in the original, you were frozen out of the pause screen while using the shield, to force you to spend energy on it). The Electric Toothpaste Dispensers will only dispense their wiggly, blue electric toothpaste to the left, not both sides. The secret attack against Quick Man doesn't quickly drain between half to all of his health in one tap. It slowly drains exactly half of it. The Mecha Monkeys seem a bit slow to act. The stack of barrels with eyes can take damage in any barrel, not just the one with eyeballs. The Scrubbing Bubble Slinkies go haywire next to you but for some reason do not actually strike you if you are on the left, while it still hits you on the right. ___ /_ (^o^) === __", === /*_*\ === \\\\\ === _______________________________________________________ |[ Websites of Interest ]=============================| MMKB, The Mega Man Knowledge Base http://megaman.wikia.com/ The Mega Man Homepage http://www.mmhp.net The New Mega Man Site at CAPCOM http://megaman.capcom.com/ Mega Man (CHARACTER), at WikiPedia.Org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_Man_(character) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_Man Ultimately, Mega Man is a character who is the creation of prominents Japanese artists and programmers. Where the past or future and all truth of Mega Man lies is in the imagination of his creators. But I am sure the interest of the creator of any video game lies in the fantasies of the human race, and of the players of the game, and of other artists. So Mega Man as a game is worthy of interpretation by YOU, the player, as any set of symbols and meanings. That means Mega Man is truly a work of art!