Welp, it's time for another Mega Man game on NES where we beat Dr. Wily again, look up everything in the world to figure out how to destroy everyone as painlessly as possible, yadda yadda yadda.
This time around, Proto Man's gone berserk, sided with Dr. Wily and kidnapped Dr. Light. Now Mega Man not only has to stop Proto Man, but figure out what's going on.
Gravity Man
I usually start with Star Man, but NCS starts with Gravity Man.
The arrows change the gravity in the section that Mega Man enters. Down arrows have him walking on the floor while up arrows have him on the ceiling. Be careful, as it is possible to fall up into pits as it is to climb down a ladder to reach something supposedly unreachable.
The green enemies with the one eye will switch gravity along with you.
The crushing robot this time is actually a huge, dark pink robot with a mohawk and two legs. He jumps into the air, stays in midair for almost a second and then slowly comes straight down. He's easier to deal with than the crushing robots of games past.
If you get hit while you're charging a shot, you're going to lose your charge and have to re-charge. This is a big change from the previous game and can be quite annoying at times, especially on later levels.
You'll also have cylinders that dump gumballs at you and turrets that pop out of the floor here as well. They're pretty easy.
Eddy the flip-top robot shows up here. The power-ups he'll give you are random, and sometimes he'll even give you a one-up. Expect to get weapons pick-ups when you don't need them, though.
Also, loving the parallax scrolling in the middle of the stage. For once, this game has something the other games lack...even if there's not much in the way of new additions in comparison to the previous games.
You'll soon notice a black circle with an M in it. You'll have to come close to dropping into the pit, then move into the down arrows to cause Mega Man to drop down and grab the letter. Be careful not to fall up and into the pit.
Near the end, you'll see two flying sphere enemies that are only vulnerable when they open their eyes and move. You can kinda see some past enemy ideas starting to be recycled here.
Gravity Man makes for an interesting boss fight. If you have Star Man's Star Crash weapon, you can get next to him and hit him with the shield when he changes gravity every so often, but he is very easy to fight with even the Mega Buster. It takes a bit of practice to hit Gravity Man as he's changing gravity, even as he shoots at you on his way up or down, but you'll be able to figure it out quickly.
Beating Gravity Man gives you the Gravity Hold.
Gyro Man
Despite the fact that NCS is guessing here, Gyro Man is actually the next Robot Master to fight after you beat Gravity Man.
This is one of the best songs in the game. Even though the game improves on the music - and little else - this game is still a solid outing. MM2 through MM4 is still the zenith, though.
As soon as you go right, you'll take a lift. Then it's on to the business end of the stage.
The shield robots will raise their shields up and then fire at you before they lower their shields again. Obviously, you want to shoot at them as they fire at you. You'll also see the flying sphere robots that we saw near the end of Gravity Man's stage again, and they're a lot more annoying here for obvious reasons (the most obvious being the bottomless pits in this stage).
This game's variation of the "Hello-I'm-the-enemy-that-runs-across-the-floor-can't-be-hit-and-is-the-scourge-of-your-progress" enemy is a spiked pinwheel that has the added ability of moving all around a platform. It's not too bad, and it actually looks really nice.
The flying spinning robots with the red eye can be destroyed with just one hit.
The chicken robot creates robot chicks out of the hole in its torso. Shoot down the head to get rid of it.
The platforms with the flashing red light underneath spin Mega Man around as they take him somewhere...and then drop into the abyss below. You want to leap off as soon as they stop.
The turrets here fire from the hole in the bottom instead of the obvious cannon on top. They also turn around when you get behind them much like normal enemies would.
The flying orange robots with the green lights on their head will fall down when you get near, moving their copter blades upwards and shooting spikes out of their undersides as they drop straight down. The blocks you'll see after the first salvo will drop when you walk on them...and you'll have to deal with more of those guys.
The letter A will be underneath one of those blocks. It's easy to get, but also easy to lose your life after getting it if you're not quick enough.
You'll then see another lift. This one is significantly slower and allows you to avoid the spikes underneath all the low overheads. You'll have to leap near the end, but for the rest you can just slide your way to safety.
The orange robot with the flashing lights fire two bullets at your present location. These bullets are always fired at an angle, so take care when you're airborne.
Gyro Man can be a pain if you don't have the Gravity Hold. You've most likely noticed that the clouds act as a foreground object, and that certainly works in Gyro Man's favor, as he can fly in them and hide somewhere as he tries to throw his Gyro Blade at you. If you have Gravity Hold, you can keep firing it every few seconds while running and jumping away from his Gyro Blade and finish him off, even if he's in mid-air. Don't fire it too fast, or the post-hit invulnerability he has will cause you to waste your weapon power, and you'll have to finish the job with the Mega Buster.
Beating Gyro Man gives you Gyro Attack. The Gyro attack can also be fired upwards or downward, just like Gyro Man did it when he had it. You'll also get Rush Coil. This time around, you jump onto Rush, and then you stand on Rush as he bounces into the air once.
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